Jind, October 10
The furore over the spurt in rape cases in Haryana, police action and subsequent arrests may be a good beginning, but the fight for justice is a lot longer and arduous in the state that has seen low conviction rates. Ask the family of a 13-year-old girl of a sleepy village in Jind district who was gang-raped by seven men in August 2008.

The incident stirred the people’s conscience and whipped up immense hype back then. Four years down the line, the victim’s family continues to fight for justice against all odds, but wonders if it was a good decision. Is fighting against injustice a crime after all? The frenzy around the case died down long ago and the family’s financial sources are fast drying up. A distraught father, the family’s only earning member, is unable to shake off the fear of prejudices and barely manages to make both ends meet.

“I keep asking myself if the fight is worthwhile. This case is not the only thing in my life. I have married off two of my daughters, including the victim. I have four more daughters and a son to bring up, but my earnings end up funding the case,” he says as he smokes a beedi. He deals in seconds of carpet wastage yarn in Panipat.

The family of limited means has already spent Rs 2 lakh on the case. “Add to this the stigma of rape, of being the topic of gossip and leading a shameful life for no fault of ours. A murdered daughter would have been a lesser burden to carry,” he says.

The entire village joined the family to bring the guilty to book. “After a case was registered, we would load villagers into cars and go seeking arrests, knocking at the doors of police officers and politicians alike. That, by itself, cost a fortune. We only came back with empty assurances. It took the police nearly four months to arrest the culprits,” he recounts.

All this while, his traumatised daughter, a school dropout, would shut herself in a room at the mere sight of strangers. “It was very painful… she would cry and scream that they would come back and rip off her clothes. It took her nearly a year of medical help to be normal,” the mother recalls.

The main accused, a village boy from a Dalit family, and six others who took turns raping the girl are behind bars. A lower court pronounced 10 years imprisonment to them, but they have moved the high court. “Frankly, I am rethinking if the fight should go on at all. The case is our past and is being fought at the cost of the present. Soon enough, I will have to choose between providing for my family and fighting the case,” says the father.

In the swirl of everyday life, as the victim’s siblings grow up unaware of what happened in 2008, the family does not encourage them to befriend other children.