Still Jungle Raj

The demand for justice for victims and survivors of violence in Bihar continues

ON July 3, 1999, the bodies of a 23-year-old woman, who studied at Patna Women’s College, and of her boyfriend were found in a seminaked state in a car in a bungalow’s garage in the city. The gruesome incident sent shock waves across Bihar. Even after various pieces of evidence like semen stains of more than one person on the woman’s clothes in the forensic examination and postmortem report and injuries indicated that she was gang-raped and murdered, the Patna police had reportedly claimed it was a suicide. The efforts to suppress the case were attributed to the fact that the names of former Chief Minister Rabri Devi’s brother Sadhu Yadav and other politicians had surfaced in the incident. Later, the case was transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which after four years of investigation, also concluded it to be a suicide. Factors such as a then-MLA’s (believed to be Sadhu Yadav) denial to provide his DNA sample demanded for investigative purposes and unanswered questions about who informed the police about the bodies lying in the garage were put in cold storage. In 2006, when the demand to reopen the investigation was made, the woman’s brother was kidnapped, adding to the suspicions already surrounding the investigation. It is widely believed to have been wrongly concluded without the conviction of the perpetrators of the crime.