Harshita
GUJARAT: While we are still stuck on Nirbhaya's rape and murder case (that happened more than 7 years ago), another such heinous crime is reported in Saira village of Gujarat. A 19-year-old Dalit woman named Kajal was found hanging from the Banyan tree who was gang-raped and murdered on January 5.
The girl went missing on the first day of January and when the family went to the police, they rejected to file an FIR. The woman's aunt said in her statement, "When she went missing, her father went to file a complaint, but the police did not accept it. They did not file the rape FIR till two days after the body was found."
Apparently Kajal went out somewhere with her sister but did not return back. Her sister revealed that a man named Bimal Bharwad kidnapped the girl and warned the sister to be mum about it. Later, a CCTV footage was found that totally supported these statements. The footage showed a car that was registered under the name of Bimal's father Bharat Bharwad.
The accused, on the other hand, blamed three of his friends named Darshan Bharwad, Satish Bharwad and Jigar who took his car.
The actions took by the police is highly condemnable. They allegedly did not file a case because the girl belonged to the Dalit community. They could have saved the girl's life had they considered the case with utmost urgency. They registered the case after two days when the girl's body was found hanging.
Such Shame!
The body was brought to Ahmedabad civil hospital on Tuesday and the family refused to accept the body until the arrest of those culprits and punishment to officer Rabari for such a casual attitude towards the crime.
There have been several protests by the hundreds of community members who are demanding the arrest of the culprits and suspension of the police in-charge.
Kirti Rathore, a Dalit activist said, "We have two demands. The perpetrators of this horrific crime should be arrested and the police inspector should be suspended for his actions. Only then will the family accept the body."
Meanwhile, additional ADGP KK Ojha has promised that justice will be served. He said, "We have asked local police deputy superintendent to arrest the accused as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we have initiated a departmental inquiry to see if there was indeed negligence on part of the police in this matter."
The only question is how long will we have to witness such horrifying incidents. A few days ago only, we were celebrating the death penalty of Nirbhaya case's convicts and now, we have landed on the same stage. For how long do we have to wait for justice, for how long do we have to protest for such crimes and when will such inhumanity take a back seat?
Nirbhaya, Disha and now Kajal! And we thought there will be a decrease in these crimes but we don't know how many predators are still roaming amongst us.
