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“Had my rape not been brought up by politicians like Narendra Modi and Mayawati, maybe I would have never got justice,” fumbles the 19-year-old Dalit woman, a Class 12 student, in Rajasthan’s Alwar, who dreams of joining the state police in future, the same institution which failed her a few days back.
Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) continue to trade barbs over the case, the survivor, Manju (name changed), sits inside a dingy room of her one-storey house in a village near Thanagazi, shivering due to fever and breaking into tears every now and then. Her 21-year-old husband keeps reiterating the trauma of the 26 April afternoon to a flock of journalists, outside Manju’s room.
Here is how the fateful afternoon of 26 April and the days after unfolded for the young couple:
The SP noted their statements but did not file an FIR. He marked the statement and sent them back to the Station House Officer. The SHO, too, investigated the matter for a day-and-a-half and then finally filed an FIR on 2 May.
The husband rushed to the SHO with his family but he was’t available to meet them. The survivor’s husband says the SHO told them to wait till the 6 May elections in the state get over, as till then there are not enough police personnel there.
Police have arrested all six accused in the case.
Manju’s husband looks up, asks in a quivering voice, “It was bad what they did to my wife. Why did they (the accused) have to make my wife’s video viral? Everything is over.”
The survivor says she felt like killing the accused herself when she got to know that her video was made viral. This Class 12 student said she won’t be able to go back to her school. “I know it is not my fault, but how many people will I fight with?”
The Alwar SP was removed while the Thanagazi SHO was suspended after the case came to light. The Rajasthan government has appointed Jaipur Divisional Commissioner KC Verma as the investigating officer in the Alwar gang rape case.
"The state government has given the task to investigate the case to me. I will remain available for public hearing at the office of the subdivisional officer in Thanagazi on 16 May and at the Alwar circuit house on 17 May," Verma said.
He said any individual or organisation could come forward to present a memorandum related to the case from 10 am to 5 pm.
The political storm grew big over the alleged crime after the BJP started to protest against the Congress government. On Monday, 13 May, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his charge that she was “shedding crocodile tears” over the Alwar gang rape incident and accused him of indulging in “dirty politics” and demanded his resignation for incidents of Dalit atrocities in the past.
When asked about her case being raised during election campaigning, the survivor said, “In a way, it is good. The police acted speedily because it was politicised.”
Her husband, however, holds a different view. “They are all just doing it for votes. Nobody cares about us.”
When I reached a remote village, bordering the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan’s Thanagazi. Failing to locate her house, I asked a passerby to help me find my way. “At the end of the village,” he replied peeping through my car’s window. “Can you please come along with us?” I insisted. He hesitates, “The villagers will see me. I am a Gurjar. They are Dalits.”
“Everyone but the Gurjars in the village have come paid a visit to know how we are doing after the incident became known,” Manju’s husband tells me as he gets ready to recount the ‘nightmarish’ afternoon to yet another journalist.
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