The victim Bhim Singh a resident of Ghaldana Kala, P. S. Singhana was a Govt. employee and worked in “The Ganga Nagar Sugar Factory” for 15 years.  Though the factory supplied 2 bottles of bear to the workers, Bhim Singh never drank, instead gave to his friends. 

On 3 Jan, 2004, with bottles of bear he went to one of his close friends, but he never came back. In the next morning 04.01.2004 he was found dead.  Sangita (nice) inform the family over phone.  Dharmpal (38) from Bhobia, Tehsil Chirava, and District Jhunjhunu, who knew Bhim Singh since 1998, lodged complaint in Singhana police station. A criminal case was registered No. 04/04.  The wife of the victim was at the village Ghaldana, so a day after the murder Sangita informed her over telephone. The diseased and Dharmpal (38) s/o Jagnaram has good relation, so he used to call him brother in law.  They become close to each other within a few days.

The police did not worry about the murder, and then some relatives of the diseased, together with the family staged a ‘Dharma’ in front of the office of the District Collector.  Taking the benefit of doubt police arrested Dinesh Kumar Kumawat and he admitted that he alone murdered him following previous enmity. In the mean time the grandfather of the Victim met the speaker of State Legislature assembly Sumitra Singh talking the assistance of Om Prakash Aabusaria (BJP worker) who lived near Veeru Singh Circle.  Their intention was to settle the case at any cost.

GPF money of Bhim Singh was withheld accusing Bhim Singh involved in criminal activities.  There is no such evidence found in this regard. On the other hand the wife of the victim is suffering from Cancer and no aid is offered to her from the DC. The Supervisor of the Women’s Commission, Dr. Pavan Surana wrote a letter to grant the medicines free of cost in Sawai Man Singh Hospital and she is still getting it.

The Police have arrested Dinesh Kumar Kumawat (24) on account of doubts and he accepted his fault. The District Collector has announced Rs.50, 000/- as an aid to the family but the benefit is not reached yet. Case is going on in the court.

Burugupalli Hasham and Molla Afzer of Pulusumamidi village of Vikarabad (mandal), Ranga Reddy (Dist) in Andhra Pradesh attempted to murder a Dalit woman, Byagari Parwathamma on 8.12.2003. Byagari Parwathamma w/o Devaiah of Nalapur village is residing at Pulusumamidi village, Vikarabad Mandal, Ranga Reddy District. But, after a daughter was born to Parwathamma and Devaiah, Devaiah refused to look after Parwathamma and their child. Hence she returned to her mother’s house. Her father, Pochaiah, had passed away when she was only a child. Now she is about 40 years old. She belongs to Mala (SC) by caste. She is an agricultural coolie. After her younger brother Laxmaiah’s marriage, the Government had allotted him a house. He gave that house to his sister Parwathamma and she is staying in that house at Pulusumaamidi.

 Vikarabad is 90 kms away from Hyderabad and Pulusumamidi, is 7 1/2 kms from Vikarabad. The houses in Pulusumamidi are concentrated in 2 adjacent areas, a little away from each other. In one area there are 35 Mala (SC) families, 40 Madiga (SC) families and 10 Muslim families. This habitation is known as Colony. In the neighboring area, about a furlong away, there are 80 Kurva(BC) families, 7 Mudiraj(BC) families, 10 Eediga(Gouds,BC) families, 300 Reddy families and 60 Muslim families. Agriculture is the main occupation in the village. Major part of the land in and around the village is in the hands of the Reddys. Most of the SCs, BCs and Muslims work as agricultural labourers. Politically one Kumar Reddy s/o Narayana Reddy of Congress party and one Manikya Reddy s/o Ranga Reddy of Telugu Desam party control the village between themselves.In short the entire village is economically, socially and politically under the domination of the Reddy community(OC).

Sometime in the middle of 2003, Burugupalli Hasham @ Md. Hasham (32 yrs/2003) s/o Basheer sahib Muslim by community and resident of Pulusumamidi used criminal force on Suguna, Parwathamma’s daughter in the odd hours, with the intention of outraging Suguna’s modesty. But they had not complained to the police or anybody else out of fear of loss of prestige. This emboldened Hasham(perpetrator) in seeing Parwathamma as a weak person. Later, an election to the village vidya committee was held. B. Parwathamma was elected a member of the committee. Burugupalli Hasham @ MD.Hasham s/o Basheer Sahib, residing at Pulusumamidi contested to the post of the Chairman of the vidya committee. Hasham expected Parwathamma to vote for him but she voted for another person who won to the post of the Chairman of the Vidya Committee. This incident made Burugupalli Hasham nurture grudge against Parwathamma and then on he was waiting for a chance to take revenge on her.

On the intervening night of 8/9-12-2003 B. Parwathamma was sleeping at home on a cot. Her grand-daughter, Saritha (7years) d/o Suguna and Narsimha was sleeping beside her. Burugupally Hasham and Molla Afzer broke the streetlight that was near B. Parwathamma’s house. After that they broke open the door of Parwathamma’s house using the jack-rod of a tractor, entered the house. Both of them caught hold of her by her head and her legs and placed her on the floor. One of them , then stamped her throat with his foot and shouted, ”We will kill you”. Then, she recognised him from his voice that he was none other than Burugupalli Hasham @ MD. Hasham (32 years 2003) s/o Basheer Sahib, Muslim by community and a resident of Pulusumamidi village, Vikarabad (Mandal). B. Hasham had a “raggu’ (woollen blanket) wrapped around him. While they were grappling with each other, his ‘raggu’ fell onto the ground and B. Hasham’s face and the baniyan he wore, were seen by her. The other attacker was Molla Afzer @ Md. Afzer (26yrs 2003) s/o Babu Miya, Muslim by community and resident of Pulusumamidi village of Vikarabad (Mandal). M. Afzer was wearing a rain coat.  In the tussle, they broke her bangles and Hasham shouted, “Do you dare not to support me in the vidya committee!”  Hearing all this noise, Parwathamma’s granddaughter, Saritha, woke up and though looked shocked, asked them, “Do not harm my mamma” and came in between them and her. They pushed Saritha violently out of the house so that they would meet with no obstruction in the fulfillment of their evil design. Hasham then threatened to kill her, branding a knife in his hand and soon stabbed her on the neck thrice. She was groaning and writhing in great pain. Blood was all over her body and the floor around. She soon collapsed. They then took away the 1 ½ tulaa (15 Gms) gold ornaments from her neck and 10 (100Gms) tulaas silver ornament from leg. Thinking that she was dead, they fled from her house.

An attempt to murder and robbery case was registered in Vikarabad Police Station against the assailants. She was admitted in the Vikarabad Govt. Hospital. After two days she was discharged from Hospital.

In Dudhela village there are 50 Rajput families and they own the vast majority of the land. The Yadavs number 35 households and own some land as well.  The Pasis are the largest Dalit community in the village and are mostly landless. Other than these three castes, there are small numbers of families of Muslims and several Backward Castes. In January 2003 dominant caste landlord Dharam Singh (FC Rajput) beat the young son of Dalit agricultural labourers Phulo Devi and Mahesh Chaudhury, alleging that the boy had eaten some peas from his field. Mahesh Chaudhury confronted Dharam Singh, saying, “Sir, if my son has done something wrong, you should have corrected him, not assaulted him.”  This infuriated the Rajput landlord and he beat Mahesh as well.  He also denied the Dalit labourers their wages, claiming that the money would go towards the debt their son had incurred by stealing his peas. Violent incidents of this sort are commonplace in Dudhela village.

Kalawati Devi (Pasi, 18 years) lives with her husband Suresh Chaudhury and his family in Dudhela village, Risiyap police station, Varun block, Aurangabad district, Bihar.  Kalawati was married to Suresh in 2002 at the age of 16 years. Though Kalawati was educated up to 6^th standard, her husband is illiterate.  She is the youngest daughter-in-law of the family. Though the traditional occupation of the family is selling toddy, they also work in the fields of a Rajput landlord named Jitendra Singh. The family also borrows money from Jitendra Singh when needed. Kalawati is good-looking, and therefore her in-laws do not allow her to venture outside the house. They require her to work only inside the house, or nearby the house. Once in the first year of Kalawati’s marriage, landlord Jitendra Singh came to her house unannounced and started talking to Kalawati.  He asked her where her father-in-law was, and said that he needed to speak to him regarding some work for him in his fields the next day.  Kalawati told him that her father-in-law was away for some work and was not at home at the moment. She told Jitendra that when her father-in-law came back she would let him know this information.  After that she turned to go inside,but Jitendra insisted on talking with her further.  He asked her if she was educated, to which she replied in the affirmative.  He wanted to continue the conversation with her, but she went inside. After this incident, Jitendra Singh began frequenting Kalawati’s in-laws’ house to have a look at Kalawati when her husband and father-in-law were away selling toddy. Whenever he did not get to see Kalawati, he would get annoyed and would ask her father-in-law where she was.  Kalawati’s father-in-law used to ignore Jitendra’s remarks, remaining absorbed in his own concerns. Kalawati’s husband Suresh sometimes travelled to Aurangabad town for daily wage labour.  His parents, meanwhile, worked in Jitendra Singh’s fields from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., when they would come home for a lunch break, and then again in the afternoon. Apparently interested in luring Kalawati out of her house, in January 2003 Jitendra Singh told Suresh’s parents that he suffered losses due to their going home for lunch and asked them to tell their youngest daughter-in-law to bring them their midday meal in the fields. “Otherwise,” he told them, “You can look for work elsewhere.” Suresh’s parents were frightened at the thought of being unemployed, as they knew that their traditional occupation of toddy tapping was only seasonal and could not provide for their livelihood.  As their other three daughters-in-law stayed at their own homes, they were forced to ask Kalawati to bring them their midday food.  For eight days, Kalawati brought them their food in the fields without event.

On the ninth day, in early February 2003, Kalawati was as usual taking food for her in-laws.  On the way to the fields lay Jitendra’s cabin.  Jitendra, anticipating her approach, intercepted Kalawati near his cabin and said to her, “Put the food in the cabin.  Your in-laws are working some distance from here and they will come here to eat today.”  Kalawati complied.  As soon as she entered inside the cabin, however, Jitendra blocked her exit and said, “If you make even a sound, I will rape you and murder you.” Kalawati ignored this, resisted him and shouted for help. Furious, Jitendra forced her onto the ground and started tearing her clothes off. Kalawati resisted by pulling his hair and even spat at him, but soon she was overpowered.  Jitendra forcibly raped Kalawati. After that Kalawati started crying and told Jitendra that she would tell people about what he had done. Jitendra replied, “Look, don’t go and make a commotion about this.  It’ll be you who gets disgraced and in any case, if you try to put a case against me, it will never get anywhere, because in this area, my family holds sway.” On hearing this Kalawati grew frightened.  Seeing her scared, Jitendra again started kissing her all over and again raped her. Afterward he said, “I like you very much.  Stay a while and let me enjoy you some more.  I’ll give you some money for this, too, don’t worry.” Kalawati has not told anyone about the rape. This was primarily due to the fact that she thought she and her family would get a bad name. She thinks that she will never get justice.

For the last ten years, Kalawati’s father-in-law’s mother (75 years) has been living on a small plot of land (two katthas, or less than 1 acre) belonging to the Irrigation Department along the roadside.  There are seven other families – belonging to Backward Castes and Scheduled Castes, including Kumhar, Lohar, Dusadh, Pasi and Chamar castes – who have also captured some land and have been living there for many years.  Kalawati’s grandmother-in-law lived there in a shed for ten years, but otherwise Kalawati’s in-laws did not cultivate the small plot of land.  In 2001, however, Kalawati’s father-in-law Moti Chaudhury (50 years) began deliberately occupying that piece of land and cultivating it.  Once they started cultivating it, they also built a small mud hut on the land and placed a charpoy (wooden cot) there for sleeping.  Kalawati and her husband stayed in the family’s home in the village, while Kalawati’s in-laws stayed in the hut on the cultivated land. They also planted some vegetables on that land and kept part of the land as a ‘kalihaan’ (a smooth place cleared of pebbles and rubbish, where one can thresh one’s wheat) during the harvesting season for their harvested crop.

The local dominant caste landlords, however, opposed the idea of a Dalit family occupying this piece of land.  In particular, dominant caste landlord Ramdev Singh (FC Rajput) was a strong opponent.  Ramdev Singh’s family is extremely prominent and influential in the village, and the panchayat mukhiya (panchayat head) is known to be their supporter.  Ramdev Singh’s three sons – Upender Singh, Dharam Singh and Bahira Singh – along with their cousin Jaganarain Singh together own 90 bighas (40 acres) of land in Nathu Bigha, adjacent to Dudhela village.  These Rajput landlords historically have taken possession of any government land or private land that becomes available.  They also wanted to dispossess Kalawati Devi and her family of their small plot of land. 

Once Kalawati’s family began cultivating the land, the Rajputs began making threatening remarks, such as “You’re determined to get beaten up, aren’t you?  Are you sure you want to occupy this land?”  The Rajput men made these comments publicly in the village, particularly to Kalawati’s mother-in-law Gemini Devi.  Kalawati’s mother-in-law sometimes replied, saying, “Yes, we’re occupying the land; where else should we go?”  The Rajputs also threatened Kalawati whenever she was seen on the plot of land. One morning in December 2003, at about 7:00 to 8:00 a.m., the Rajputs came to the plot of land in two tractors, armed with weapons.  On seeing the Rajputs armed and clearly intending to attack them and destroy their home, Kalawati’s in-laws fled.  Kalawati, however, remained there and challenged the Rajputs. The attackers – Upender Singh, Dharam Singh, Jaganarain Singh, Halender Singh and Bahira Singh – forcibly seized hold of Kalawati, dragging her about.  As Kalawati resisted them and shouted at them not to attack her home, the Rajput men manhandled her.  Fearing rape, Kalawati then managed to free herself from the assailants and fled the scene.  The Rajputs then destroyed Kalawati’s family’s mud hut and looted their possessions.  In their two tractors, the Rajputs rode off with the Dalit family’s thatched roof, the charpoy and household items looted from their hut.

Immediately after the incident, Kalawati’s in-laws went to Risiyap police station and narrated the incident to Station Officer Rajesh Kumar Yadav (BC Ahir, 40 years).  Station Officer Rajesh Kumar Yadav registered the case and agreed to conduct an inquiry.  He assured Kalawati’s family that he would take care of the issue, saying, “Go ahead and grow your vegetables, eat, lay the kalihaan for threshing, there’s no problem at all!” Accordingly, the Dalit family resumed their visits to the land and again planted vegetables and cleared land for the kalihaan.  In response, the Rajputs went to the police and had a case registered under sec. 107 Cr.P.C., requiring both parties, where tension exists between two communities, to keep the peace.  When Kalawati and her family approached the police, the police advised them to compromise with the Rajputs, as the land ultimately belonged to the Irrigation Department.  For six months Kalawati’s family attended the court dates for the sec. 107 Cr.P.C. proceedings, but the Rajputs did not attend court even once.  The court therefore took no action, and Kalawati and her family were unable to resume their cultivation in peace. The Rajputs’ cavalier attitude toward the court proceedings suggested to Kalawati and her family that the Rajputs had come to an extra-legal understanding with the police. The local mukhiya, Krishna Dubey (FC Brahmin) supported the Rajputs and told Kalawati’s family that if they dropped the police case and abandoned the land, he would give them a house under the Indira Awas Yojana government scheme.  Finally, under pressure from the mukhiya, perpetrators and the police, Kalawati’s family agreed to a “compromise” in April 2004, saying that they would not reconstruct any buildings on the disputed land.  The police, however, assured them that they could continue to cultivate the land.  Accordingly, not long after the “compromise” in April 2004, Kalawati’s family planted vegetables on the land.  Immediately, though, Ramdev Singh and his sons destroyed the vegetable crop and planted a crop of daal there instead.

Shortly thereafter, Ramdev Singh and his sons arranged for a family of their own caste – Raj Kumar Singh (FC Rajput, 40 years) and his family – to occupy the disputed land.  With Ramdev Singh’s support, Raj Kumar Singh and his family built a brick house with a thatch roof on the land.  Meanwhile mukhiya Krishna Dubey reneged on his promise of providing an Indira Awas Yojana house for Kalawati’s family.

Kalawati and her in-laws live in terror of the dominant caste Rajput perpetrators.  Ramdev Singh and his family are notorious for having murdered two men in the past – one Rajput and one Backward Caste.  On 1 August 1999 Ramdev Singh murdered Rajput Indradev Singh, but escaped prosecution by promising the victim’s son Rs.2 lakhs compensation, which was never given.  One day in 2002, Ramdev Singh was abusing a Backward Caste carpenter whose cattle had strayed into their fields when another Backward Caste man intervened.  Furious, Ramdev Singh shot the interventionist dead.  Despite these two murders, Ramdev Singh and his family continue to move about freely about the village.  Indeed, the impunity enjoyed by the Rajputs has emboldened them to the point that they raise the murders to threaten Kalawati and her family.  During the course of the land dispute, the Rajputs threatened Kalawati’s mother-in-law Gamini Devi, saying, “We committed two murders and nothing happened to us.  If we do something to you also, nothing will happen to us.  We have got our people at every place – court, thana [police station] and district office – and who have you got?  Nobody” Gamini Devi says, “I ran up and down between Risiyap [police station] and Aurangabad [court] and nothing happened.  Finally I gave up.” The Rajput perpetrators have never been arrested or punished.  The case never progressed to court, and the “compromise” ended in the Rajputs occupying the land.  Fed up with the failure of the government machinery to provide justice at every step, Kalawati and her family have given up hope of obtaining justice.