Dalit kills self after daughter is ‘gangraped’

She kept it secret for 10 days. But when the father finally got to know,he preferred to kill himself rather than bear the terrible humiliation,the mother said.

Dabra is sharply divided between Dalits and upper caste Jats. All the alleged rapists are Jats. The men allegedly filmed the gangrape on mobile phones,and a video clip is apparently in circulation in Hisar. The police declined to confirm this.

The family has refused to take the body until the alleged rapists are arrested.

Hisar superintendent of police Satheesh P Balan said,“A youth has been taken into custody. We expect the family will take away the body tomorrow.”

The 16-year-old schoolgirl was abducted on September 9. “A car approached from behind me. Mahender and Rajkumar,two of the eight youths inside the vehicle,got off and pushed me inside. They took me to a field on Tosham Road. Four other youths were waiting there. Eight of them took turns to rape me for about three hours,and four recorded it on mobile phones,” she told The Sunday Express.

“The men are known goondas. I recognized four of them; one is the nephew of a politician,” she said.

When the girl stopped eating,her mother,a former schoolteacher who gave up her job to bring up her two children,found out what had happened.

“My daughter told me on September 18,” the mother said. “I informed my husband,who asked me to go with our daughter to my parents’ home. He then consumed poison.”

“In villages,such things can’t be kept secret. By the time we got to know,everyone was talking about my daughter’s rape,” she said.

The father was a gardener who made around Rs 20,000 every month,a lot of which was spent on their children’s education. The victim’s brother studies at ITI,Hisar; she has always wanted to be a doctor. The family lives in a kuchcha one-room dwelling in the Dalit part of the village.