A 14-year-old Dalit girl died at Max Hospital in Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh in July 2016. She was raped, tortured, and forced to drink a corrosive substance.
On October 7, 2015, a two-and-a-half-year-old Dalit girl went out to buy a chocolate and never came back. Her family dried tears in search of her but to avail. Two days after the incident, they found her in a pile of garbage, motionless!
Baby Gudiya (Name Changed) lived with her Dalit parents in a small one-room kitchen situated in a slum in Mumbai’s Ghatkopar. Her parents Laxmi who is a domestic help and Nagesh who works in Housekeeping have been working to fend the needs of the family. They had big dreams for their little child. But their world collapsed when they saw the body of their three years old girl dumped on the pile of garbage two days after she went missing.
The post-mortem report revealed that the child incurred Vaginal injuries which clearly indicated that she had been a victim of rape. Not only she was subjected to brutal sexual assault, she was killed and her body was thrown from the top of a hill on a garbage pile.
The police, who were supposed to take swift action turned the family down. They registered an FIR but only after several requests. The copy of FIR was not given to the family. When HW News investigated further, we found a trail of sheer negligence on part of the police.
The police not only underreported the crime but also harassed the family. The police only applied Section 363 which is related to kidnapping. The police did neither apply POCSO nor SC/ST Act.
While HW News has taken it as a responsibility to put up a fight demanding justice for #BabyGudiya, here is a list of some of the cases Dalit women who have been subjected to Sexual crimes:
The Haryana Horror:
Two minor Dalit girls were allegedly raped and killed in separate incidents in Haryana in January this year. According to police, one of the girls, a 15-year-old Class X student, had been brutally assaulted and her private parts mutilated. She was abducted by two men when she had gone out of her house to throw garbage in the village dump yard. After abducting her, the accused took her to a house, where they allegedly raped and strangled her. They also burnt her clothes in a bid to destroy evidence. Her body was found near a canal at Budha Khera village in Jind district’s Safidon town on Saturday, the police said. It said the girl’s body was found with 19 severe injuries and signs of ”unspeakable torture”.
Delhi’s another Nirbhaya:
A 14-year-old Dalit girl died at Max Hospital in Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh in July 2016. She was raped, tortured, and forced to drink a corrosive substance, allegedly by a man who had raped her earlier as well. Talking to a news media, the girl’s uncle said, “For two months she suffered every day. She was forced to drink an acid-like substance after which she could not eat anything. Drinking water was also painful. She would vomit blood. Only one accused has been arrested while four are walking free. We want them to be arrested and punished.”
The DCW chief Swati Maliwal who pressed on the issue also expressed her outrage on twitter saying that the Delhi failed it’s another Nirbhaya. “She died just now. Delhi again failed her Nirbhaya. She suffered so much pain. N her perpetrators were roaming free! When will this end? How long will Delhi’s girls be thrown to the wolves? This Nirbhaya was also raped by the system. Can anybody hear her scream?” Swati Maliwal said.
Tamil Nadu’s Dalit Family awaits justice:
A decomposed body of a minor Dalit girl was found raped and murdered in January 2017, in Tamil Nadu’s Ariyalur. The girl was abducted in the month of December. However, the family had to run from pillar to post to even get the FIR registered. The girl’s friend had told the family that she was in a relationship with a man named Manikandan. “We had informed the police about it and asked them to check if she was abducted by him, but the police did not investigate properly. The Family raised suspicion on the police investigation and demanded an immediate CB-CID investigation.
Raped Dalit minor became pregnant, forced to abort:
A minor Dalit girl who became pregnant following her gang rape was forced by a local panchayat in Kharkhauda area of Meerut to settle the case in exchange of Rs 3 lakh. Police took cognizance of the crime on Friday and lodged an FIR. “We had learnt about the settlement in a panchayat. A case has been lodged and teams have been formed to nab the accused,” Rajesh Kumar, SP (rural), said. According to police, the girl was not only gang-raped but was also forced to abort after she became pregnant.
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