New Delhi, October 5: Even as a year has passed since the heinous case of gang-rape and murder of a 19-year-old dalit girl took place in a village of Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district, the poor family of the victim still awaits justice.

The case is being dragged on in the local courts. Meanwhile, the victim’s family has lost all hopes of getting justice thanks to the slow pace of the legal proceedings in the country that takes years to deliver justice even in such crucial cases.

The Hathras gang-rape and murder case drew the attention of Indian and world media after the body of the victim was cremated in Hathras, about 200km from the national capital New Delhi, in the wee hours of September 30 last year without the family’s consent. The family members of the victim also accused the local police of refusing to register the complaint and didn’t support the vulnerable family, which stands at the last step in the Hindu caste hierarchy.

The case is still being heard in a regular district court, which is known for delays. In India, about 40 million cases are pending in different courts, today. The victim’s family lives in fear of retribution as all the accused belong to the dominant upper-caste Hindus, and they have tried to convince the villagers, most of whom are upper-caste Hindus, that this was a case of honour killing. Of nearly 250 homes in Boolgarhi village, only four belong to Dalits, who now face social ostracisation.

A year on when some of the workers of Bhim Army, a local political outfit set up by some dalit leaders tried to march towards the house of victim, they were chased and beaten up by people of upper cast who dominate the region. The victim’s family has been living under threat from both police as well as their neighbours belonging to the upper caste.

The district court has ordered round-the-clock security for the victim’s family. Entry to and exit from the victim’s house is monitored by more than 30 personnel from the Central Reserve Police Force posted there and security cameras installed inside and outside the house.

“The victim’s family members have to seek permission even to buy groceries, while anyone entering the house, including journalists, has to register themselves,” a member of the victim's family told this Lifenews correspondent who visited the site twice, once immediately after the incident and second again a year later.

“We are forced to live inside our home, and not allowed to venture out. The home has become a jail for us,” said the victim’s elder brother, Satyendra Kumar. The accused belonging to the upper caste are from the same village as the victim.

The state government led by Yogi Adityanath of the BJP, the right-wing Hindu nationalist party has not done anything to provide relief to the victim’s family. The case of murder and gang-rape of the dalit victim and then the hurried cremation without the consent of the family in the wee hours is nothing but a reflection of the malaise and criminal mindset against dalit women and minorities in the state of Uttar Pradesh that has been drawing flak globally for its attitude towards these vulnerable sections of the society.

The Hathras case and the subsequent handling of the matter by the State Government ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) raise many disturbing questions, including that of attempts to cover up the crime and protect the accused from charges of rape and murder. The theory that it was an honour crime committed by the family members themselves was assiduously planted by a section of the media and through the statements of some officials.

On the morning of September 14, the young woman from the Valmiki community along with her mother and brother were busy collecting fodder in the millet fields in Boolgarhi. This was routine work for the family for being a means of basic sustenance. The fields on which they worked were owned by upper caste Thakurs. The village, with around 400 people, itself is dominated by Brahmins and Thakur families. This Valmiki family was among a handful of non-upper caste who wielded no influence whatsoever.

It is a family of agricultural labourers, dependent on income from agricultural work and the sale of milk from the few buffaloes they owned and also on the munificence of the upper castes. The incident itself is a reflection of a larger malaise, one that goes beyond the immediate occurrence of the crime and the hurried cremation.

When the opposition parties protested, they were accused of politicizing the incident. The Allahabad High Court, however, took suo-motu cognizance of the incident and hurriedly conducted cremation and stated that the incident had “shocked” its conscience. The Hathras district administration was directed to appraise the court of the developments in the case and the inquiry into it.

The incident is also a pointer to the impunity with which violence against women from socially and economically backward groups takes place in India and the manner in which procedure is given short shrift. There has been no respite in heinous crimes against women despite amendments to the rape laws that broadened the definition of sexual assault and rape and introduced new offences within the Indian Penal Code.

The state government had been creating a false narrative of a conspiracy being hatched to engineer riots in the state. An affidavit that a lawyer submitted in the court on behalf of Yogi Government stated that the police had taken all steps after registering the crime and that “extraordinary circumstances and sequence of unlawful incidents” had compelled the district administration to cremate the victim in the presence of the family members who “agreed to attend to avoid further violence”.

The state government in its plea also pointed out that the social media, certain sections of the print and electronic media, and some political parties had made a deliberate and planned attempt to incite caste and communal riots using the present offence.

The gruesome incident of gang-rape and murder of a dalit girl could not have come into open light had there not been a public outcry. The crime would have been recorded as just another statistic against a Scheduled Caste woman. What is required in this case is certainty of procedure, proper and swift investigation and guaranteed strict punishment that could address the issue of low conviction rate in the growing incidents of crimes against women.