Dalit killings in Kherlanji
BY Teesta Setalvad
The murder of four members of a Dalit family in the
village of Kherlanji, population 780, in Bhandara district, 120 kilometres
from Maharashtra’s winter capital of Nagpur on September 29, was not
merely ghastly. The killings, which followed the mutilation (in public),
multiple rapes (of the mother and daughter) and parading naked of the
entire family for over three hours, are an indicator of the impunity that
the perpetrators believe they enjoy. Incidents such as these are not
uncommon in states like Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh but have sent shock
waves through the Dalit community in Maharashtra.
The victims were Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange’s wife, Surekha, 44,
his daughter, Priyanka, 18, and sons, Roshan, 23, and Sudhir, 21. Ever
since this shameful incident took place, the local police administration
appears to be doing its best to suppress evidence, lending strength to
local activists’ demands for a CBI investigation. In what has now become a
sorry feature of almost every incident of brutality in the country, the
FIR is itself faulty and is being challenged by the lone survivor. The
first post-mortem report prepared by government doctors does not even
accurately record the injuries visible on the naked and mutilated bodies
of the victims. While the Prevention of Atrocities Act has been applied to
this case, Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code, the section related to
the offence of rape, has, significantly, been omitted.
Meanwhile, statewide protests against the massacre have
gained ground in Nagpur, Mumbai and surrounding villages and districts,
finding a national echo the day the Nagpur bandh was called on
November 10. Yet the state of Maharashtra appears determined to smother
public outrage. From October 29 to November 6, the Youth for Social
Justice, under an umbrella organisation, held a peaceful dharna near the
Babasaheb Ambedkar statue at RBI Chowk, Nagpur. Day after day, as news of
the dharna spread, Dalits and others began visiting the protest site in
significant numbers, leading the local police to inexplicably and suddenly
withdraw permission for the peaceful protest. Thereafter, when another
protest turned somewhat violent, the state’s home minister, RR Patil
rather dubiously stated that Naxalites appeared to be responsible for the
protests. Locally, under the guidance of the commissionerate in Nagpur,
policemen hauled up women protesters and beat them brutally. Even as we go
to press, activists are possibly facing arrest.
Three days after the incident (which first drew local
media attention on October 2), 16-20 lakh Dalits converged at Nagpur to
celebrate the golden jubilee of the mass conversion of Dalits to Buddhism
in 1956 (see accompanying story). Sensing the potentially explosive
situation if news of the massacre leaked out, initially the administration
did all it could to suppress events.
Surekha Bhotmange and her daughter Priyanka were
humiliated, bitten, beaten black and blue and then gang-raped in full
public view for an hour before their remains were thrown into a nullah. A
local policeman told the first fact-finding team to visit Kherlanji (of
the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti which visited the village on October 6)
that the marauders had pushed sticks into the women’s private parts while
Bhotmange’s two sons were kicked and stabbed repeatedly. The assaulters
had mutilated the men’s private parts too, disfigured their faces and
tossed them in the air before the duo were flung to the ground.
As dusk settled on the small hamlet, the four bodies of
this Dalit family lay strewn in the village chaupal (square) with
the killers pumping fists in the air and still kicking at the bodies. But
their rage was far from spent. In an even more macabre dance of death,
some angry men went on to rape the badly mutilated corpses of the two
women.
Only one woman from the village tried to intervene.
Bhaiyyalal, cowering close by, was an eyewitness to events, as was Rajan,
a relative of the Bhotmanges. A single policeman now offers protection to
these witnesses who cannot return to their villages following the incident
of mass terror. Rajan, who lives in a neighbouring village three km away,
had his face slapped by a policeman when he went to record his statement
as witness to the incident. Fortunately, sound advice by an active team of
Nagpur-based lawyers led four witnesses and survivors of the carnage to
record their statements under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code,
CrPC, before a local magistrate in early November.
The fact that the Bhotmanges owned land in Kherlanji where
they had settled 18 years ago – land which they had reclaimed from
landlords and which they tilled to live a life of dignity – coupled with
the fact that Surekha refused to live a life cowering in fear, appear to
be the main motives for the ghastly crimes. For months prior to the
incident, open threats had been levelled against the family and an FIR in
this connection had also been lodged. That the local police refused to
take cognisance of the very real threat faced by this Dalit family living
in a hopeless minority speaks volumes about the attitude of the local
administration.
The first battle that the Bhotmanges fought was with the
local landlord who had usurped their land and as a result of which the
other castes had sworn revenge, claiming that the extermination of a Dalit
family would cost them nothing. For over a decade police complaints lodged
by the family had met with little response. Days prior to the massacre, on
September 3 Surekha Bhotmange’s cousin, Siddhartha Gajbhiye, the police-patil
of neighbouring Dhusala village, was badly beaten by Kherlanji villagers.
It was then that Siddhartha’s brother, Rajendra, shifted him to Kamptee in
Nagpur district, 100 km away. The offence related to the incident was
lodged at Kamptee and the case was thereafter referred back to the
Bhandara police for investigation. That is when offences were registered
against 14 persons and when an identification parade was conducted by the
police.
Both Surekha and Bhaiyyalal identified the culprits
notwithstanding the reigning threat. Ironically, on the morning of
September 29 itself, these 14 persons were arrested and produced before a
Mohadi court and then released on bail. As soon as they been set free,
these persons first drove down to Kandri, a village 10 km from Kherlanji,
in search of Rajendra and Siddhartha. But when they were unable to find
them, they rushed to their village, baying for the Bhotmanges’ blood. They
reached the Dalit family’s hut to find Surekha and her children preparing
the evening meal. And that is when they took their revenge.
When I visited Kherlanji, the village wore a ghostly
shroud of silence despite heavy police presence. Bhaiyyalal had packed up
and removed his belongings from the family home – a cramped hut with
nothing in it, really – to move in with his in-laws at Deulgaon village,
20 km away.
Kherlanji lies in Mohadi tehsil and the Bhotmanges
were one of the two Mahar families that lived in a village dominated by
OBCs, the landlord clans here. Bhaiyyalal moved to the village to farm his
mother’s five-acre plot of land about 18 years ago but it was Surekha who
tilled the fields and fought to regain the family’s hold over a portion of
land grabbed by the OBCs, castes which are a decisive political force in
these parts. The Bhotmanges’ cramped hut is proof of their abject poverty.
Despite this, Surekha toiled hard to send her children to school and
college. Priyanka was a National Cadet Corps, NCC cadet who dreamt of
joining the armed forces.
The vicious massacre was clearly pre-planned. Village
heads first attempted to tarnish Surekha’s reputation by spreading rumours
that she was involved in an illicit relationship with Siddhartha Gajbhiye,
the police-patil of neighbouring Dhusala village. Siddhartha
Gajbhiye is actually Surekha’s cousin and a Dalit himself. The district
superintendent of police, Suresha Sagar admits that the Andhalgaon police
did not attend to the Bhotmanges’ calls, nor did they investigate the
crime immediately after the incident. Siddhartha had in fact made a
desperate call to the police station when he learnt that the Bhotmanges
had first been attacked, at around 6.15 p.m. on that fateful day. While
about 32 persons have been arrested so far, the victim survivors have
stated that the main accused roam scot-free.
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