HOUSE OF GRIEF

The dalit family in Hathras will not relent in its search for justice

- SNEHA BHURA

In one of the three rooms of her house, a dazed mother sits on the floor, her pallu pulled over her head. It has been more than a week since her 19-year-old daughter succumbed to injuries after being allegedly gang-raped and brutally tortured some 700 metres from her house in Boolgadi village of Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh.

The stream of enraged, solicitous visitors—including politicians, reporters, activists, neighbours, district officials, protesters, policemen and investigators—has left her slightly immobilised. She sits with her hand on her head. The need to stitch a consistent narrative around her daughter’s assault has become more than urgent. There is no time to grieve a terrible loss from a horrific crime. Or even erase disturbing wounds from her memory. Because the mother was the first to see her daughter lying stripped, paralysed and maimed amid tall stalks of bajra (millet). Because the mother made desperate attempts to file a first information report, and seek medical treatment from one general hospital after another, even as her daughter flitted in and out of consciousness. Because she fed her biscuits and juice even as the daughter struggled to record her statement and name her assailants from her hospital bed. Because state authorities hastily cremated her daughter on September 30, in the secrecy of the night, without her consent. Because hers is a Valmiki family in a Thakur-majority village and years of accumulated anger over constant subordination can only end in nyay (justice).