Rape & worse: Victims get justice, not homes

“Aamhi ata tichi bhet gheaoo shaknar nahi,” (We cannot afford to meet her now)” sighs Wamanrao, a farm labourer from Hiwarkhed village in Sindkhed Raja tehsil, Buldhana district. Illiterate and barely able to keep their heads afloat, Wamanrao explains why the Jaibhays, who learnt ofthe verdict three days after it was delivered on March 22, 1999, will have to disown their daughter, who has lived in a women’s shelter in Pune for four years now.

In fact, abject poverty had forced the family to entrust Panchasheela to her maternal aunt in Partur tehsil in Jalna district, at the age of three. When she was 13, Panchasheela and her friend, 16-year-old Sunita ran away from home in search of jobs in neighbouring Parbhani. Instead, they fell into the clutches of 16 men who gang-raped them 28 times over the next two days. Then they were abandoned at Parbhani railway station, exactly where they were first `found’ on July 3, 1994.

On March 22, the Parbhani District and Sessions Court convicted 10 of the 16 accused to 10 years rigorous imprisonment. Today, both girls continue to live under tight security in Pune and are not allowed to meet visitors at the shelter. While both have met their respective families barely once since the ordeal, Sunita occasionally writes to her widowed mother inPartur. Panchasheela has neither met nor communicated with her family in the last four years.

Back at Hiwarkhed, Panchasheela’s mother, Leelabai, dreads the day she may cross paths with her daughter. “What will I tell her? Do I have anything to offer her? This body shivers at the thought of meeting her and my heart beats loud enough to be heard a thousand miles away.” Pain and longing for her daughter have long since been eclipsed by reproach due to the contempt heaped upon the family by the socially and politically sensitive Vanjari community. “I can tie my sari into a jholi and go begging to feed my daughter, but will I be able to face the disapproval of this village if she returns,” she asks, anger brimming. Vindication via the courts counts for little in this tiny hamlet, where social perceptions mean everything.

The Jaibhyas are also determined to prevent Panchasheela from “casting her shadow” on their four other children. “Will anyone marry my second daughter or will my sons get decentbrides? Like all parents, we too dream of better days for our children. But to fulfill them we shall have to free ourselves from the clutches of poverty and right now we have no arms with which to fight it,” remarks Leelabai, who stopped working as a farm labourer ever since her daughter was raped. The state will henceforth have to be her guardian, says her mother. Not a flicker of emotion crosses her face.

Saraswati Nagare, Panchasheela’s aunt at Patur, who looked after the girl for 10 years, says she considers the teenager dead for all practical purposes. “She has blackened her face. We have shut the door on her,” she retorts, driven purely by her community’s expectations. Asked what Panchasheela had done to deserve this, Saraswati struggles for words and reason.

But the teenager is no stranger to abandonment. Four years ago, when she was at a remand home in Nanded, Panchasheela escaped and found her way back to her village. But within 24 hours, her parents handed her back to the police and finallyto the shelter. “If we had allowed her to stay, who knows, she may have even committed suicide here one day,” says her father, his wife nodding in agreement.

In stark contrast, Sunita’s mother says she cannot wait to see her daughter again. But, she explains, she cannot afford that luxury. A domestic servant who earns Rs 400 per month, Kiran Aggrawal is too poor to make the trip to Pune. Tears welling up, she recalls the lone meeting with Sunita in Pune in 1995. “Even god forgives those who repent… you are a mother,” Sunita had pleaded then.

Offering a postcard she has preserved, Kiran sobs softly. Scribbled in a halting hand, the girl begs for absolution. She also says she has no suitcase. In the postcard, dated October 6, 1997, she adds: “Please send me some money to buy toothpaste.”

Kiran also recalls the time Sunita had visited her at home four years ago. Overcome with shame, she had lunged at the only tangible memory of herself that her 45-year-old mother had preserved – a photograph – andclawed away at it wildly. But if the girl, now 21, had tried to erase traces of the darkest episode of her life, her mother has finally come to terms with it.

Unlike the Jaibhays, social censure is furthest from the minds of Sunita’s mother and her younger brother, Datta. Besides, Kiran has scarcely slept at night ever since the court’s verdict – the fear of reprisal is all-too consuming. “Will they allow my daughter to live… Can the government give her any kind of security against them,” she asks, referring to the politically powerful families, whose kin were among the 10 persons convicted.

Like Leelabai, Kiran’s heart too `beats loud enough to be heard a thousand miles away’. But she knows that is not sufficient to bridge the few hundred miles which separate Partur from Pune. Behind the wall of poverty that divides, Kiran Aggrawal still dares to hope. But the Jaibhays, they have succumbed.

For Panchasheela and Sunita, life will have to continue from the remand home in Pune, where they have beenresiding since the last four years. Ever since they were gang-raped in July 1994, the threat from the accused has been hanging ominously in the air. Hence, for the police, the priority is their safety and rehabilitation. Jobs are being sought while the girls, now aged 18 and 21, are kept under tight security and complete anonymity. Neither is allowed to meet or speak with the press or any other outsiders. Of the 16 accused, 10 have been convicted of rape. Among these are: Nitin Doodgaonkar, son of Limbaji Doodgaonkar, former president of the Parbhani Zilla Parishad, and nephew of former Congress minister, Ganesh Doodgaonkar; Kalyan Renge, son of Bansidharrao Renge, ex-chief of the APMC; and Munna alias Ravindrasinh Parihar, an Independent corporator from the Parbhani Municipal Corporation.