4 years on: For Dalit girls raped in Gujarat, memories and hope for justice keep the families going

Karabhai Dayabhai Rathod, a 64-year-old Dalit man, was once a resident of Amrapur village, near Modasa Aravalli in central Gujarat. A farmer by profession, he used to farm and rear cattle on a patch of land given by the Gujarat government. His son, then 15 years old, was studying in school. Of his two unmarried daughters, then 21 and 19 years respectively, one was learning to sew and the other was pursuing higher studies.

“My younger daughter Riya (name changed) was a bright girl. She was keen on learning new things. She went to the same government school as her brother in Modasa town. But she had enrolled herself into a computer course. After school she would attend computer classes in Modasa till 7 in evening. She had the kind of hopes and dreams of a better life that I could never give her,” Karabhai Rathod says reminiscing about his daughter whom he lost in December 2019.

On the intervening night of December 31, 2019, and January 1, 2020, everything changed for Karabhai and his family. That day, Riya left her house like usual for school but never came back.

Five days later, her body was found hanging from a tree about 2 kilometres from their home.

“I want justice,” said Karabhai who is now a frail man tired of running from pillar to post seeking justice for his daughter.

“They say she was not murdered. They say she was not raped. I don’t believe it,” he said, adding, “I want justice for my daughter, that’s all I want.”

Two days after looking for his daughter, when Karabhai went to the Modasa police station on January 2 to file a missing person complaint, then inspector NK Rabari not only refused to file a complaint but also told him that his daughter had eloped and shall be back with a marriage certificate.

“They mocked me as I stood there, desperate, worried and begging to file a complaint for my missing daughter. The police official told me Riya was just the right age to elope. She would return after a week or so with a man or a marriage certificate and they laughed at their own joke,” Karabhai tells The Federal recalling his harrowing experience.

On January 5, 2020, three days after Karabhai had attempted to file a missing person complaint, his daughter was found dead hanging from a tree near Sayra village.

A huge protest had erupted with Dalits pouring in from neighbouring districts. As public pressure mounted, the Modasa police relented and filed an FIR on January 8 that year. The police inspector was also transferred.

In the FIR, Karabhai had named four accused — Bimal Bharwad, Darshan Bharwad, Satish Bharwad and Jigar Bharwad, all of them belonging to Maldhari or Rabari (pastoral) community, for raping and murdering his daughter.

After a week of investigation, the Modasa police found no evidence against the accused and concluded an accidental death due to asphyxiation. Amid protests against the investigation, the case was transferred to Crime Investigation Department (CID) in Ahmedabad that formed an SIT to investigate the case.

It was then that a second post-mortem conducted by a panel of five doctors of Forensic department of BJ Medical College, Ahmedabad, suggested that the victim was raped, dragged, brutally sodomised to cause rectal prolapse (a state where part of rectum/ large intestine protrudes from the anus) and then forcibly hung while still alive.

However, after about two months of investigation, the SIT declared that the victim was neither raped nor murdered.

The SIT led by DIG Gautam Parmar stated that the 19-year-old girl had committed suicide. It also stated that the prime accused, Bimal Bharwad, and the girl were in a relationship which went awry after the girl came to know that he was already married. The SIT also did not find any role of Satish Bharwad, Jigar Bharwad and Darshan Bharwad in the case.

The only accused to be booked was Bimal Bharwad under section 1089 of Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and under IPC Section 306 for abetment to suicide, section 201 for destruction of evidence and under section 504 for insulting the victim with obscenity over phone calls.

However, Bimal Bharwad was granted bail in the following week and has been out since then.

“The day the first post-mortem report was released and it suggested that there was nothing to suggest rape, my family and I had to leave Amrapur,” Manguben, mother of the victim, told The Federal.

“She was the only person who was pursuing higher education in our family. She was our brightest child. I shudder to think we lost her to such brutality. It fills me with rage,” shares Manguben.

“We left our home, our land and our cattle that might have starved to death. We gave up everything so that we can fight for justice for our daughter. We have no home and been living in someone else’s house in Sayra. There has barely been any earning since we left our home,” she added.

A lot has changed in the last four years for Karabhai and his family. His elder daughter is now married. His son quit studies to earn for his family. But his income as a daily wage earner hardly sustains the family. Karabhai has fully immersed himself in legal documents and trips to court and government offices.

“In 2021, with help from some activists, we filed a case in local court to reopen the investigation. We have had two hearing so far where they questioned me, my elder daughter and my wife in detail. We heard the other lawyer (defense advocate) claiming Riya had a relationship with Bimal (named primary accused in FIR) and multiple other men and engaged in unnatural sex,” tells Karabhai as he breaks down.

“But I still have hope for justice. I have to my daughter’s memory is the only thing that keeps me going these days,” he shares.

Karabhai, his wife and son now live in the house of an acquaintance on the outskirts of Sayra village, Aravalli amidst a cluster of 10 other Dalit families.

“We suggested that he should leave his home and settle in Sayra with other Dalit families. Amrapur is a village dominated by people of Bharwad community where Karabhai’s family was the only Dalit household. Besides, the residence of Bimal Bharwad is about 2 kilometres from Karabhai’s house and his father is a loan shark with close links with many BJP MLAs. In fact, Karabhai was even offered money to take back his complaint,” said a local Dalit man of Sayra.

This is not an isolated tale of a family that has been relentlessly seeking justice for their daughter who were subjected to sexual violence.

Around 350 kilometres away in Vadli village of Amreli district, another Dalit family has faced a similar fate.

Laljibhai’s daughter used to work as an agrarian labourer for a Darbar (Kshatriya) family of the village. On December 25, 2019, the then 21-year-old girl was asked to work overtime and not allowed to leave along with other labourers at 6 pm.

That day, instead of being home at around 7 pm, Reva (name changed) came home at around midnight when her employer Hiteshbhai Khumar and his friends dropped her home.

“They were all drunk when they dropped Reva home. I got angry at the fact that they had not allowed her to come back home on time. I got out of my house to talk to them but they brutally thrashed me and left. When I got up and I saw my daughter sitting at the steps of the house, her dress torn from multiple places, I realised she had been raped,” recalls Laljibhai.

“I will never forget that day. Reva was shaking, clinging to the main door, sitting and staring blankly. I called my wife and she tried to get her up. Reva broke down crying and kept crying for hours. On the fourth day of the incident, we took her to the police station to file an FIR. She cried and screamed as she recalled her experience. That was the last day we heard her voice. She has been quite since then. With time, her health has deteriorated. She can barely get out the bed now,” he shares.

“The incident took a toll on the victim’s mental health and she stopped speaking. She has been under treatment but her condition has only worsened over the years. She has been bed ridden and immobile for over a year now,” advocate Navchetan Parmar, who has been helping the family, told The Federal.

Laljibhai now lives in Babra village in Amreli in a cluster of Dalit households that over the years has become a rural ghetto of Dalit families who had to migrate due to caste-related atrocities.

“It took 10 days for police to file the FIR. But as soon as the FIR was filed, the family of the accused began to threaten us. They threatened to thrash and kill me or my family members unless I withdrew my complaint. Besides, the uncle of the accused is a wealthy businessman and local BJP leader. We decided we had to leave the village for our safety and to pursue the case,” Laljibhai said.

“We had 10 bigha of land and a house that belonged to our joined family of four brothers. We also had some cattle. We had to leave everything,” he added.

“There are two parts of the case, Ranipbhai Dhakra is accused of caste atrocity for thrashing Laljibhai and Hiteshbhai Khumar is accused of both rape and caste-based atrocity,” Jagrutiben Joshi, one of the lawyers fighting the case, said.

In August 2020, Laljibhai and his family gave a memorandum to the Amreli district collector stating the risk to their lives and asking for a migrant status.

“We camped in front of the collectors’ office and protested for seven months. It took seven months for the collector of Amreli to acknowledge the gravity of the situation, sanction us as migrants and allot a land,” Laljibhai told The Federal.

He further said, “These four years have been very difficult. I don’t keep well and cannot work anymore. We have had to sustain on daily wages that stopped during the lockdown. But we will continue to pursue the case.”