‘Justice is only for rich, mighty’
NARELA HORROR Father of fouryearold who was raped, murdered says he has no faith in police, judiciary; wants to leave Delhi We poor people will get nothing out of this fight for justice. My daughter is dead. She will not come back. I am a daily wage labourer who has to work to feed his family. Nobody will fight for us.
NEW DELHI: Two years ago, 32-year-old Prahlad (name changed) and his wife had come to Delhi from Bihar’s Samastipur in search of livelihood and a better future for their two children — a daughter aged two and a one-year-old son.
Prahlad and his wife had no proper education, hence the job they could find was that of dailywage labourers at construction sites of Delhi Development Authority’s (DDA) housing project in outer Delhi’s Narela. Though their income was less, it did not deter them from planning the education of their children.
On Thursday, all their dreams were shattered after their fouryear-old daughter was kidnapped, raped and murdered by their 16-year-old neighbour inside an under-construction building in the area.
To cover his tracks and the girl’s identity after, the accused also smashed the face and head of his victim with a heavy concrete block.
Locals said the boy was allegedly trying to bury the girl’s body with concrete blocks when the girl’s three-year-old friend saw him and raised an alarm.
Though the teenager was caught, thrashed and later handed over to the police, the gruesome crime has left the girl’s parents shocked, enraged and distressed. So much so that they do not even want to pursue the case or seek justice for their dead daughter.
The parents of the girls said they had no faith on the police or the judicial system.
Justice, they said, is delivered only to the rich and poor people like them would never get it.
“We poor people will get nothing out of this fight for justice. My daughter is dead. She will not come back. I am a simple daily wage labourer who has to work day and night to feed his family. Nobody will fight for us. And even if they do, she will not come back,” said the father.
“The police said they were probing the case, but I have no hopes from them. We wanted to send our children to school but God had something else in store for my daughter. We are tragedystricken and do not want to stay in this city anymore,” the father said.
Workers at the construction site told HT that Prahlad had not turned up at work ever since the incident.
They said he was finding it difficult to cope with the loss.
“The girl’s mother fell ill because she had been constantly crying and mourning her daughter’s death. Seeing her condition brought tears in our eyes as well. She was inconsolable. We later called her brother who took her to a hospital,” said Rajesh Kumar, a neighbour.
The family lives in a single room makeshift accommodation allotted to them by the construction company.
On Saturday, when HT visited, the room was found locked from outside. Some clothes worn by the girl were found dangling on a plastic rope outside.
Locked in a cage right outside the main door was a parrot that looked hungry and agitated.
While others in the neighbourhood seemed to be in a state of shock, the girl’s three-year-old brother was spotted playing with his friends, clueless about his sister’s death. “He is too young to understand the tragedy his family is going through,” said Riyaz, another labourer.