Lalitpur victim’s mother recounts horror of apathy
THE SHO, FOUR GANG RAPE SUSPECTS, AND THE SURVIVOR’S AUNT — ACCUSED OF ABETTING CHILD’S ABDUCTION — ARE UNDER ARREST
LALITPUR AND KANPUR: “I feel safer,” the 13-year-old girl said from somewhere inside the tiny dark room, a sizeable portion of which is occupied by large sacks stuffed with straw.
“You watch, I’ll be able to fight,” a brief pause later she adds, the firmness in her voice palpable. After spending five days under the protection of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), the survivor of the Lalitpur gang rape case was escorted home by a bunch of police personnel in two multi-utility vehicles. Along with the child was her mother who was allowed to be by her side in the CWC’S shelter.
While the mother tried to set the chaotic little house in order on Saturday afternoon, and tended to her seven other younger children, the girl went into a dark corner of the house, refusing to emerge. “She has only been crying all through. I am trying to make her forget what happened, but she keeps getting reminded of it,” said the mother.
The entire Pali police station staff was transferred on May 3 after it emerged that the girl was kidnapped and gang raped for four days in Bhopal, and then allegedly raped again by the station house officer (SHO) when she went to record her statement on April 27. This has made the family confident to fight on, but their anger hasn’t subsided.
“I knew the SHO (Tilakdhari Saroj) was a bad man, but I didn’t know he was a demon,” the mother, squatting under the sun outside her house, said. “Just because you have a powerful government job, you do not get a right over our bodies,” she added.
For now, the SHO, four gang rape suspects, and the survivor’s aunt — accused of abetting the child’s abduction — have been arrested. While there are five men accused of rape, the mother is particularly angry with the SHO. “The police are known to recover bodies from under water. Here, no one even cared to trace my living daughter for over a week.”
She said that her complaints about a similar case involving her daughter in November 2021 went unheeded. This attitude, she said, created the latest situation where the girl was kidnapped and repeatedly raped.
In the previous case being referred to by the mother, she told the court that her daughter was allegedly gang raped by two men when she was visiting the fields to relieve herself on November 7. The mother alleged that her child was gang raped at knife point by Chandan Aharwar and Mahendra Chaurasia – local villagers who are also accused in the latest case.
“They approached the local police, but the SHO refused to register an FIR and didn’t get the child medically examined,” the family’s lawyer, Hardayal Singh Lodhi, summed up the complaint.
On November 24, the mother approached the court to file an FIR. Her complaint named not only the rape suspects, but accused the SHO of being hand-inglove with the alleged assaulters.
The court sought the police’s response on the allegations. In his response to the court, a copy of which is with HT, a sub-inspector said no evidence was found in support of the allegations and accused the child’s mother of being a “habitual” complainant. “Based on this response, the court rejected our appeal for an FIR. But, as per procedure, it asked for the girl’s statement to be recorded in court on April 25,” said Lodhi.