Village of missing men

They are accused of committing a series of crimes against a family from another community. Now with most of its men in prison, Khapa Khateda is plotting its next move

There is something in the air of Khapa Khateda that warns outsiders that behind the mud walls of small houses set in idyllic surroundings, the village is plotting its next move. Most men are missing; they are either behind bars or at large, hiding in neighbouring fields.

Having taken the law into their own hands, they are paying a heavy price for a series of crimes they committed to teach a family a lesson. They burnt alive three women of the family in 2004 and hacked to death two men on June 13 and September 9 this year.

A tribal woman, pregnant for four months, was also killed with the two men on September 9 while the police meant to protect them waited in the village. The June 13 killings took place because the men refused to retract their statements given in connection with the 2004 burning case.

The village, apparently angered by the criminal activities of the large family headed by Hangry Lohar, had set three women from their family on fire in 2004.

Most villagers are Kunbi, an OBC caste ranked higher than Lohars. But the Lohars were much better off than the other villagers. Today, the burnt houses and their ruins still stand, reminding the village of its violent past. Since then the village has not celebrated any festival, nor managed to organise any marriage and is waiting for its men to return.

Despite the cold-blooded murders, despite the police cases and the hunt, the village plays the victim. As many as 126 men have been named in the three FIRs, leaving their women angry at the victims and the administration.

Despite the eight deaths in the opposite camp, the village accuses the Lohars of framing its men. They have complained to everyone from the National Human Rights Commission to the MP governor to the National Commission for Women about their fate.

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The allegations and the counter-allegations have become a major headache for the police and the administration. Despite knowing that the villagers resented the presence of Lohars, they could do little. The Lohar family, which owns land in the village, was recently shifted amid heavy police protection to Katol town in Maharashtra. The Lohars had been taken to Betul after the first incident and had been offered land in several villages but returned after a year because every village in the vicinity complained about their criminal activities and did not want the Lohars in their backyard.

The villagers narrate scores of tales about their harassment by the Lohar family. The police and the administration say the family was into petty thefts, loots, liquor sale and intimidation. But neither crime was big or serious enough to provoke the punishment handed down to the family by the villagers.

Betul SP Jagat Singh Sansanwal refutes the allegation that the police are making indiscriminate arrests. 8216;8216;We go by evidence,8217;8217; he says.