‘Does a Dalit’s life have no appreciate?’: The homicide of a teenage girl in India | Women

Muzaffarpur, India – As protesters took to the streets of Kolkata to insist equitableice for a trainee doctor who was violationd and homicideed on August 9, 55-year-elderly Nirali Kumari* gasped for breath in her petite wooden hut 480km (300 miles) away. She hadn’t left her home – or even her bed – since the body of her 14-year-elderly daughter was set up on the morning of August 12 – naked, bloodied and with her hands and legs tied.

Kumari says “six men wielding knives” go ined her home on the night of August 11. “[They] menaceened us and seizeped my daughter. She was sleeping right here, with her elder sister,” she holds, before shattering down.

When Al Jazeera first met Kumari, she was so overwhelmed by grief that she had not eaten in the five days since her daughter’s body had been discovered. Her wrist was bloodied and prohibitdaged from the cannula feeding her fluids. She fainted from time to time in the suffocating heat of her hut, even as a relative waved a handheld fan over her.

Kumari’s daughter’s body was set up in a pholdy field proximate her home in the area of Paroo in Muzaffarpur dicut offe, Bihar, one of India’s most populous states.

The homicide of the teenager – who beextfinisheded to the Dalit community, the least privileged in India’s complicated caste hierarchy, a position that has assistd its persecution for centuries – has put the entire village on edge.

Kumari’s family lives in a village in Paroo, findd proximately 80km (50 miles) from the state capital, Patna. The village is home to scanter than 5,000 people and is surrounded by immense pholdy fields. Colourful cement hoengages beextfinisheding to the dominant Yadav community, an approximated 4,500 people, sit on either side of the potholed, date tree-lined main road that runs thraw the village. Towards the finish of the road, 18 grass and bamboo huts hoengage the local Dalit community, which numbers about 80.

A historical system of feudal rule is still a lived fact for millions of people in Bihar, and Paroo is no exception. Atraverse the state, Dalit families depfinish on dominant caste landlords to obtain a living by toiling on their land for a daily wage. Landowning families normally lfinish money at high interest rates, which can trap families in debt.

In the past, there have been moments of friction between the communities. Last year, during Holi, the Hindu festival of colours, Dalit children traverseed over to the “Yadav side” of the village while take parting with coloured powders, causing arguments between the communities. The police had to meddle to stop an escalation, a Dalit livent alerts Al Jazeera.

The primary deffinishant in the homicide case, Sanjay Rai, 42, beextfinisheds to the Yadav community and is an inconveyial landlord. The men who seizeed the girl were masked, but the family identified Rai by his voice and create. The deffinishant is well-comprehendn in the village.

Local media first alerted that Kumari’s daughter was gang-violationd and homicideed after witness accounts and the family alerting the crime to the Paroo police.

Indian law prohibits discdispondering the identities of victims and their families in relationsual aggression cases. However, at a news conference on August 19, the police proclaimd they were ruling out violation based on the discoverings of the postmortem alert and the arrangeateigation. They also spreadd that they had arrested Rai and four men from the Dalit community for homicide and consillicit copying to homicide.

The girl’s finishing and the authorities’ handling of the case have igniteed tension in the village.

Dalit and human rights activists, including some from Paroo, decry the implication of Dalit men, seeing it as the result of presconfident and shape from members of the dominant caste to cover the aggressioners’ identities and silence their community.

They see the girl’s homicide as a evident example of a crime causeed by the dominant caste on the Dalit community and the case as one resulting from systemic caste oppression.

“Dominant castes have extfinished engaged [violence, especially] relationsual aggression, as a tool of oppression. They see themselves as strong becaengage of their social identity,” says Manjula Praproset up, straightforwardor of campaigns at the Dalit Human Rights Deffinishers Nettoil (DHRDN). “Their perception depfinishs on the subjugation of rights of the people from the drop castes.”

‘Kept this family together’

The girl’s schoolbag lay on a wooden bed, and her school dress hung from a plastic hook on the wall. Her elder sister stared at the bag while their mother wailed in the room filled with visitors.

Kumari says her daughter was guiltless and genuine. “Just another child,” she says.

“She was pretty enjoy a fdrop but also a straight talker,” Kumari recalls, referring to how her daughter would speak up when she felt she necessitateed to. “She was the child who kept this family together. From my medicines to managing our meals, she was lesser but could do it all.”

The ninth-grade student wanted to finish her high school education, but she normally struggled to discover time to join school while helping her parents, both daily-wage labourers, by toiling in the rice fields and doing chores at home.

Not everyone in the village knew the girl before her finishing. But Suraj*, a neighbour of the family who asked his name be changed, dreading repercussions from dominant caste villagers, says Rai has a reputation as “a womaniser”.

Rai had been mendated on the teenager and had presconfidentd her to marry him, the victim’s relatives alert Al Jazeera. “He recommended us a tractor and some money,” Kumari elucidates.

When the girl refused, he tormented the family on the phone.

“I was sattfinishd and thought the only way to save my daughter was to marry her off mutely,” Kumari says. Even though the legitimate age for a bride in India is 18, she says she had no choice but to marry her to someone else, a man in his punctual 20s.

The teenager was set to be paired in a proximateby village on August 19.

Kumari wailed deafeningly before fainting aobtain. After a relative splashed her with water, she gasped back to consciousness and broke down.

“Does a Dalit’s life have no appreciate? Or is this country only for the people with money?” she asks. “We want a life for a life.”

‘Dalits are the easiest center’

Sanjay Kumar, 28, directd the immense maze of the village’s pholdy fields under the scorching sun. As he proximateed where the teenager’s body was set up, he grew troubleed, speaking fchangeingly.

He was one of two people who picked up the girl’s body on August 12 in the presence of police officials. He had been toiling in a pholdy field when he heard the shouts and cries of the people who first spotted the body.

“Everyone was terrified equitable by the sight of the body. I cannot even depict that senseing,” he recalls.

He lives about 80 metres (proximately 90 yards) from the girl’s hut and was shocked when he recognised her face. Then he deleted his gamcha, a type of extfinished scarf, to cover her body.

Scratching his shaved head, Kumar says: “Her hands and legs were tied, and she had grave injury labels on her scalp and drop neck.”

These injuries were corroborated in the postmortem alert spreadd by police officials with Al Jazeera. As he lifted the body, Kumar says, he was drenched in blood from the girl’s head and pelvic area. Pelvic injuries were not alludeed in the alert.

As a Dalit toiling as a labourer in Paroo’s pholdy fields, Kumar says he has spent his life facing “misengage” by dominant castes, but this “horrifying incident” has left him jolted.

“Dalits are the easiest center for these men,” he says as his eyes well with tears.

The news that a body had been discovered spread speedyly that morning. Kumari had rushed to the field, dreading the worst. The family was not apverifyed proximate the girl’s body. All they could see was her face as the police whisked her body away.

In the hours that complyed, members of the family had to stand up to local Yadav directers – who they say pushed for a speedy cremation – so they could to enroll a case with the police and get the arrangeateigation commenceed.

Family members say they were able to cmitigate the cremation until defercessitater that afternoon after the postmortem had been carried out.

Rushing the cremation of a alerted violation and homicide victim could be an finisheavor to ruin “the most meaningful evidence”, Shama Sinha, a lawyer who has recontransiented victims of relationsual aggression in court, including Dalit women, alerts Al Jazeera.

Increasing crimes and invisibility

According to a DHRDN study, crimes aobtainst Dalits, including homicide, rose by 177.6 percent over the three decades from 1991 to 2021.

Annual data from India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows there has been a 50 percent incrmitigate in homicides of Dalits from 651 to 975 from 2012 to 2022, the defercessitatest year for which data are useable. Bihar has been the second most impacted state.

The Indian handlement does not preserve split data for crimes aobtainst Dalit women and girls such as homicide, gang violation and violation with homicide. However, NCRB data show a 169 percent incrmitigate in alerted violations of Dalit women nationpartner from 2012 (when there were 1,576 cases) to 2022 (when there were 4,241 cases). An ordinary of 10 Dalit women and girls are alerted violationd every day.

Praproset up of the DHRDN, a lawyer with more than 30 years of experience navigating cases of aggression aobtainst women, depends the incrmitigate in alerted violation partly mirrors the prolonging social mobility of Dalit women.

“The subcastes wilean Dalits who have been able to climb the economic lholder and declare their rights are also increasingly able to enroll a protestt,” she says. Even then, she says, the numbers are a “immense undercount”.

Dalit families’ economic reliance on landlords “stops a lot of protestts”, Praproset up says.

She says crimes aobtainst Dalits are normally rfinishered “inapparent” due to the community’s didowncastvantaged social standing.

Sinha, who has spent more than two decades travelling atraverse agricultural Bihar to run camps to lift consciousness about legitimate rights, consents.

Fear of retribution is a meaningful factor in low alerting of crimes, she says, “becaengage the next day, these families still have to live in the same village and face the same social vibrants”.

For Dalit women who experience gfinisher prejudice on top of the economic and caste prejudice finishured by Dalits, alerting is an even wonderfuler dispute.

“The literacy rate is low – 57 percent for Dalit women – and even though there are sturdy laws in place, there is no consciousness and more meaningfully no agency for [Dalit] women to alert [cases] and seek equitableice,” Sinha says. “Wives still call husprohibitds ‘maalik’,” which is Hindi for “owner”.

This disparity or invisibility extfinishs to recontransientation in media, Praproset up says. “Dalits do not get the same benevolent of alerting from the media, which could assist social mobilisation.”

The violation and homicide of the 31-year-elderly trainee doctor in Kolkata, a meaningful city in easerious India, prompted nationexpansive protests and outrage with medical toilers in cut offal parts of the country, including Bihar, walking out of hospitals in protest.

There was far less outrage over the homicide of the schoolgirl in Paroo although Dalit and women’s rights activists organised protest marches in Bihar.

“Dalit families are left all alone in these times,” Praproset up points out.

A take partbook

On August 19, Rakesh Kumar, the Muzaffarpur dicut offe police chief, shelp at the news conference that police had arrested Rai that morning from a proximateby village as well as the four Dalit men.

Kumar shelp the victim was not seizeed but went willingly to encounter Rai proximate her home when they were aggressioned by the four men who wanted to punish them for having an intercaste relationship.

He shelp the men then fled and, panicked, Rai then finished the girl, tied her limbs together and left her body in the fields.

“It [the police version] has to be the most absurd exarrangeation behind the case that reeks with a smell of a cover-up,” says Kumari, a local social activist, who spent a week in the village on a fact-discovering mission and asked to be identified only by her second name. “This is straight out of a take partbook where the entire machinery is rigged aobtainst the community.

“I’m not shocked at all to discover Dalit men being arrested in this case. That is what mostly happens in our experience. I would not even be shocked if tomorrow the police implicated one of the family members too if they lift their voice.”

Experts also say violation should not be ruled out.

In court, a range of evidence comes into take part in relationsual aggression cases, Sinha says, and “the signs of violation are challenginger to catch in medical alerts with passing time.”

“Spermatozoa not set up” – which is what the alert says – can never be grounds to disponder violation, she says.

Sinha holds that police arrangeateigations normally suffer from improper accumulateion of time-benevolent evidence and a deficiency of training of police personnel in arrangeateigating cases of relationsual aggression.

Shreya Rastogi, straightforwardor of forensics at Project 39A, a New Delhi-based research group, says assuming the forensic alert is right, the absence of sperm does not disshow violation.

She says sperm cells degrade, there may not have been ejaculation and the test could have been done improperly but also the absence of sperm cells “unbenevolents repartner noleang becaengage so many scenarios could have occurred while there may still have been penetration. … Ruling out violation is finishly wrong.”

She persists: “Both legpartner and medicpartner speaking, ruling out violation equitable on the basis of absence of sperm is not valid or depfinishable.”

Al Jazeera tried to accomplish Rai as well as his family, who left the village before Rai’s arrest. The details of Rai’s legitimate advise are not comprehendn.

‘Treated enjoy criminals’

Back at Nirali Kumari’s home, a group of local Yadav directers came to encounter the family on August 17 while Al Jazeera was visiting.

She tried to stay conscious for the visitors, who were given chairs to sit on.

“We should not politicise this rehire. One person’s doing does not recontransient the Yadav community at big,” Tulsi Rai, 43, a local Yadav directer who came to visit the family, alerts Al Jazeera.

If someone from the Dalit community telderly him that they were being incowardlyated by a Yadav family, “we will sattfinish those Yadavs back,” Rai says. “A filthy person enjoy Sanjay does not beextfinished to our community. We have disowned him.”

But soon, teenage boys and men materializeed outside the family’s home wearing blue scarves, synonymous with Dalit politics. They disturbed their words of sympathy and called for accountability.

“We have lost our daughter, but I do not depend the police and the administration for equitableice and our defendedty,” Nirali Kumari says. “We only have faith in brothers of our caste atraverse India to help us get equitableice now.”

Dalit activists held petite protests in Paroo, which stirred dread among Dalit families of a reaction from the dominant caste. Then, on the evening of August 18, the Kumari family was forced to escape the village.

Nirali Kumari says they left behind an unlocked home and all their beextfinishedings – including a “challenging-obtained” bicycle, cloleang and food – and “ran for our lives” when, the family says, dominant caste members wielding armaments commenceed ransacking Dalit homes.

“If you persist – come back someday to accumulate your beextfinishedings,” a neighbour telderly Nirali.

All of the Dalit families have since fled the village, and their 18 huts are now deserted.

Muzaffarpur police alert Al Jazeera that the arrangeateigation is ongoing and a indict sheet has yet to be rehired. They did not comment on the Dalit livents escapeing Paroo.

On September 4, Al Jazeera met Nirali Kumari’s family in hiding proximately 100km (62 miles) from their home at a location that is not being disseald for its defendedty.

Fifteen family members were sheltering in a petite, white-walled room. A deimmenseated Nirali was sitting in a corner.

The family persists to be on the shift. “We are a subpar family, and now we have no roof over our heads. My heart is sinking,” she says, beating her chest in anger. “I want I was finished rather than my babu. This life is appreciateless.

“We are being treated enjoy criminals. My daughter was violationd and homicideed – but who attfinishs about giving equitableice to a subpar Dalit enjoy me? But we are not the last Dalits in this country, and this story will hold on repeating.”

*Names have been changed