Family kept mum, Dalit rape victim commits suicide in Haryana

A teenager Dalit girl who was stalked for days, then gang-raped, humiliated and later threatened with dreadful consequences died in a hospital in Haryana on Monday after she consumed poison.

Far away from the spotlight generated in the DJ Varnika stalking case, involving the son of Haryana BJP president, the incident in the hinterland is a shrill reminder of the rot that exits. Unlike in the Varnika case, where her bureaucrat father and family supported their daughter in her quest for justice against the powerful wrongdoers, the Dalit family, unfortunately, preferred to keep mum on the issue even after the teenager was raped.

The victim girl suffered the ordeal for nearly a month before she finally decided to commit suicide.

The family stays in village Palwan in Jind district of Haryana where the crime took place.

The three accused men of the village grouped her in the fields and raped her. The victim narrated the entire incident to her parents the same day. But the Dalit family decided against going to the police. Instead, they visited the family of the accused with a request that they should counsel their boys to stop harassing their daughter in future.

Nothing changed and the victim’s harassment continued, in fact escalated. The stalking prolonged and the victim would often be asked to “accompany” them. When she declined, the accused would paste sketchy information of the incident outside the victims house in an attempt to warn her of more public shame in case she planned to complain against them and refused to accompany them whenever they desired. The victim girl could not bear the shame anymore and committed suicide.

The three accused are on the run. The police said three persons, Rahul, Praveen and Kala, have booked under relevant IPC sections of rape, criminal intimidation, SC/ST act and abatement to suicide. “Teams have been constituted. The accused will be arrested soon,” superintendent of police Jind said.

Victim’s father regretted saying he kept quite after the incident out of the fear of social stigma that his daughter will face if the case is brought to the notice of the police.