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Khairlanji: Shame of a Nation

Story of Bhotmange Family Massacre

Speaking to the nation, on the eve of Independence Day on 14th Aug. last year, President Pranab Mukharji, among other issues, touched upon the “Attacks on weaker sections that militate against our national ethos, are aberrations that need to be dealt with firmly”.He was generally commenting on the status of dalits vis-à-vis the violence perpetrated on them in different parts of the country by members of the upper caste. Some weeks earlier, visuals of four dalit youths in Una in Gujarat, made to stand in line and beaten with sticks and rods for the ‘crime’ of skinning a dead cow, had gone viral. It had greatly disturbed the national consciousness. But then this has always happened for all these post independent years of close to seven decades. Yes, there have been well meaning laws meant to protect disadvantaged sections of our society. Despite legislations, attacks on and suffering of, dalits have continued unabated. What happened in Una was only a tip of the iceberg.Atrocities committed by the upper caste people, whether they are landlords or the ones who wanted to usurp the lawfully owned land of Dalits or denying them right to use common facility provided by governments, be it a community well, piped drinking water or grazing area, instances are far too many. Some are known, some unknown, some referred to police, some are swallowed without demur for fear of physical retribution or other forms of reprisal. The enormous pain and frustration suffered by Dalits in our country must make every sensitive citizen to hang his head in shame.On 21st January, print media carried a news of the death of one Bhaiyalal Bhotmange. He was only 62 years when he passed away at about 3.40p.m at Shri Krishna Heart Care hospital in Nagpur. He was the only surviving member of a family of five. Four of this Bhotmange family were butchered in the most inhuman manner by a mob of high caste hyenas. Surekha, wife of Bhaiyalal, and their two sons- Sudhir & Roshan in their twenties and a teenage daughter Priyanka studying in 2nd PUC. Bhaiyalal who was an eye witness to the massacre, ran away to save himself from a situation of certain death at the hands of those blood hounds.Some 11 years ago, around 6.00 in the evening, on 29th Sept. 2006, this Bhotmange family was attacked by a gang of some 60 people, both men and women, of high caste Kumbi, with sticks, axes, cycle chains, iron rods and knives. The family was living in a thatched house. ‘Rushing into the hut, the women in the mob first dragged out Priyanka and Surekha by their hair, beat them and tore off their clothes. Priyanka was then taken to a nearby cattle shed and she was raped, possibly by many people. It is likely even Surekha also met with same fate. Sudhir and Roshan were meanwhile beaten mercilessly. It is said they were ordered by the mob to rape their sister and mother. When they did not comply, their genitals were crushed and mutilated. All four lay helpless as anyone and everyone did whatever they wanted, to them. It is said the rapes continued even after the women had died. The horror continued for about two hours, when it finally ended, everything suddenly returned to normal, as though nothing had happened. Some people brought a bullock cart, loaded the bodies into it and dumped them, about four kilometers away, in the irrigation canal that fed Khairlaji farmers including the field of Bhotmanges.’‘Bhaiyalal, the father of Priyanka and two boys, who was working in the field sensed something very serious going to happen to his family had rushed to his house earlier on hearing shouts of ‘Maaro salon ko..’ (beat the bastards),only to find his family was under intense attacks by the mob. “He watched for a while helplessly, hidden behind a bush.’‘He could identify a tractor, that carried men, as belonging to one Bhaskar Kadav, a local political leader and some of the men and women in the mob. He was scared to death at their ferocity. After a while he took a byway and ran to the house of Siddharth Gajbhiye, a cousin of his wife, also a police Patil and told him what he had seen. Siddharth called police station and informed them that caste Hindu villagers were attacking the Bhotmange family and requested them to rush a force to stop them. Siddharth has identified the policeman who took the call at around 7.30 that evening as Constable Rajkumar Dongare. The police did not take the matter seriously.’
The PreludeKhairlanji, is a village in Bhandara district, some 125 kms from Nagpur, which is one of the largest city after Mumbai, in Maharashtra state. Bhandara known as ‘rice bowl’ of the state is predominantly agricultural with hardly any industrial activity, except the traditional brassware industry. Wainganga river flows through the district, coupled with extensive tank irrigation network has helped the district to be better off than most districts of Vidharbha region, which is prone to drought leading to an alarming incidence of farmer suicides. Thus the region is relatively prosperous. Most houses in Khairlanji were of tiled roof with painted walls. Externally the village looked neat and organized. It had a primary school with an open-air stage for cultural events.Inhabitants of Khairlanji were overwhelmingly OBC, with just 3 dalit families of Vinod Mesharam, Durwas Khobragade and Bhaiyalal Bhotmange. Reportedly, these three dalit families have always lived in fear of dominant Hindu OBC families. A mysterious death of a youth of 20 years, from Khobargade family on 28 Feb 2006, remained unresolved by the Bhandara police even to this day. He was a 2nd year BA student. His body was found near a canal some 25kms from Khairlanji. There was an air of helplessness.Farming is village’s predominant occupation. Due to facilities of irrigation available, multiple crops, like rice, wheat, pulses are possible. This has brought relative prosperity to villagers. Bhotmange family was originally not from Khairlanji, they moved in only in 1989 due to economic hardship in Ambagad village, some distance away. Khairlanji was the original place of Surekha, wife of Bhaiyalal, and her father-in-law had some land which the family developed over a period. The cultivation of the land was not easy, since caste politics ensured that they can’t get to the irrigation canal, although the land was very close to the main canal.They had to perforce irrigate their land only in the night or early morning before the day break. Although they lived in thatched hut, they accumulated enough money to build a pucca house, the Panchayat, manned by caste Hindus, did not give the permission, hence electricity never came for the brick walled contraption they had built without cement bonding. Drinking water too was a problem to access from the village well.Acutely conscious of the prevailing caste discrimination in the village Surekha had determined to give her children better life of dignity with better education. Besides hardworking in the farm, family would roll bidis to make some extra money. Of the 3 children, Sudhir, the eldest was helping the father in the farm. He didn’t pursue his education, due to partial vision impairment, the 2nd son Roshan was in the college, daughter Priyanka was the best of the lot doing her PUC and was always top in the class. She had a dream of making it to IAS. Both Roshan and Priyanka were commuting to their college every day out of Khairlanji. Surekha even bought a bicycle for Priyanka. They even had a mobile phone at home. Their being better off and fiercely independent was never taken kindly by the surrounding caste Hindus. They nursed a desire to punish them in some form.As luck would have it, the land of Bhotmange was surrounded by the land of caste Hindus, and every time they took their tractor, they would take it straight through the land of Bhotmange, at times even damaging standing crops. Bhaiyalal, being a mild person, would take it lying down, but not Surekha. She would stand up to their tormentors, even complain to police. Thus the undercurrent of animosity was ever present.Sometime in 2004, a 10ft passage was allowed as compromise, through the land of Bhotmanges to possibly end the enmity with the caste Hindus. One Siddharth Gajbhiye, a cousin to Surekha, played an intermediary, to sort things out. But the perceived caste affront among caste Hindus persisted, since allowing the passage by Bhotmanges was taken more as a humiliation than as gesture of goodwill. Harassment of Bhotmanges became more vicious and increased. Gajbhiye being a police patil, became a thorn in the flesh for caste Hindus, since he had some influence and was helping Bhotmanges. Villagers connived to spread stories of Surekha & Gajbhiye of illicit relationship. They even tried to sexually assault young Priyanka. Intervention by Gajbhiye saved the day, but unrepentant villagers wanted their pound of flesh. A group gathered and barged into their household but retreated seeing Gajbhiye still in the house of Bhotmanges.Thus the communal tension between the caste Hindus and dalit family of Bhotmanges persisted. They were not successful in being violent due to the intervention of Siddharth Gujbhiye, who had some clout in the official hierarchy. Thus Gajbhiye also became a target of hatred. Due to his position and land holdings, he had some caste Hindu labourers working for him. One of them was Sakru Binjewar, who came asking for the wage he was allegedly not paid. Altercation had to follow, since allegedly it was stage managed. Gajbhiye slapped Binjewar. That flared into an ambush by the OBC Hindu group which grievously injured Gajbhiye. Probably the crowd would have killed him but for Surekha and Priyanka’s intervention to defend and crowd fled. Rajendra Gajbhiye, the brother of Siddharth complained to the police. After lot of uncertainties and police inaction/action, a complaint was registered at the insistence of doctors who attended to the injuries of Siddharth Gajbhiye. It took some 4 weeks just to charge some 12 accused, with Surekha and Priyanka identifying the accused. The accused were charged and arrested under four sections, which in the absence of bail would have landed them in jail. On the advice of the police on the 29th Sept, the crowd of caste Hindus went to the court and got the bail in less than 3 hours and the crowd returned to Khairlanji to avenge the insult the dalit family of Bhotmanges had ‘heaped’ on them. A meeting in the village followed in its Panchayat office and decision taken, despite their victory in getting the bail in matter of hours, although their arrest took 4 weeks. But the fact that a dalit family had got them arrested was enough to seek deadly revenge. The evening of 29th Sept, 2006, saw the gori end of Bhotmange family.After the mayhem, the village decided not to speak about one of the most heinous and dastardly episode in the history of violence against dalits in contemporary India.Nobody had any idea what had happened to the family of Bhotmange. A police constable who was brought to the scene of the mayhem by another dalit family returned to inform PSI Bharne. No action to save the family was initiated by police despite full knowledge of what was happening. It was only the next day, the naked truth of the naked bodies lying on the irrigation canal came to be acknowledged. Reportedly, Priyanka’s body had no clothes at all with injury marks all over the body including genitals. Other bodies had only undergarments, including Surekha. Police joined in keeping the gruesome happening in low key. FIR was filed with all the mild charges, without the mention of rape and murder. Clearly police had planned to sabotage the investigation. Bhandara SP Suresh Sagar, a dalit himself, took 2 days to visit the village, was a reflection on the official lack of concern for the horrendous crime. Special IGP Pankaj Gupta, reportedly visited Khairlanji after 14 days, and remarked post visit “rape was not part of the lynching.” YASHADA (Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration.) report that followed in Nov 2006, indicted Gupta for having accepted a bribe from the perpetrators of the crime.It was realiably understood that CBI investigation concluded that women were not raped, since police did not mention rape in the FIR. There were allegations of bribery and corruption leading to dereliction of duty, by doctors who performed the post mortem. Reportedly Dr. Manisha Bante, the then Medical Suptt. of Mohadi Rural Hospital, who is a niece of Bhandara MLA Nana Panchbuddhe, was present in the hospital, but one Dr. Avinash John Shende, a  junior medical officer, a former dalit himself, was allowed to do the post mortem on all bodies. Even standard procedures were given go by while dealing with physically abused female dead bodies. A lady doctor had clearly let down female victims of physical assault, probably because they were dalits.It took weeks for the news to percolate, both to dalit masses and to other parts of India, partly because, a different story was allowed to float in the local media Lok Prabha & Lokmat Times. Caste Hindu villagers had circulated a story that Surekha and Siddharth Gajbhiye were in illicit relationship and hence outraged villagers, reacted violently to put an end to it.However, the truth as always, started slowly to creep into the public space. With the overwhelming presence of police in the village, even those responding to the call of conscience, who witnessed the gori happening, couldn’t muster enough courage to talk to activists, who had descended on the village. But the truth of Bhotmanges harassment, their incomplete house, attack on Gajbhiye and the witness to the police by Surekha and Priyanka, the arrest of caste Hindus and their bail in hours, attack on the family to avenge ‘humiliation’, and cruelty heaped on Bhotmanges as seen on the naked bodies found- are all beyond dispute.On 6th Oct, a team from the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) visited Khairlanji and released a detailed report to the media. The report informed. ‘Surekha and her daughter Priyanka were humiliated, bitten, beaten black and blue and then gang raped in full public view for an hour before they fell dead’. A policeman who asked for anonymity is quoted in the report as saying, the ‘The marauders had pushed sticks into their private parts. Surekha’s sons were reported to have been repeatedly kicked and stabbed, after which the assaulters mutilated their private parts, disfigured their faces and tossed them in the air to fall to the ground until they lay dead’. ‘At dusk the four bodies of this dalit family lay strewn at the village square, with killers pumping their fists and still kicking their bodies. The rage had not subsided. Some angry men even raped the badly mutilated corpses of the two women’. VJAS sent this report to the NHRC, seeking an independent probe into the massacre since all political parties and the local administration were trying to cover it up. It highlighted the fact that until that date, more than a week after the killing, none of Bhandara’s elected representatives had visited the village.A government report on the killings, prepared by the social justice deptt. and YASHADA had severely indicted senior police officials and doctors and an MLA Madhukar Kukade for their attempt to conceal the rape of Surekha and Priyanka and hindering investigation. It recommended, they be made co-accused and booking them under Prevention of Atrocities Act, besides stringent action. The then Maharashtra Home Minister R.R. Patil admitted to the initial lapses in police investigation and said that five policemen suspended have been dismissed. On 15th September 2008 Bhandara session’s court held 8 persons guilty of murder. They were Gopal Sakru Binjewar, Sakru Binjewar, Shatrughna Dhande, Vishwanath Dhande, Prabhakar Maudlekar, Jagadish Maudlekar, Ramu Dhande, Shishupal Dhande. Six of them were awarded death sentence and other two were given life sentence. On appeal by the convicts, Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court commuted the death sentence and awarded to all 8 persons 25 years rigorous imprisonment. An appeal against this judgement is pending in the Supreme Court.Here is a story of horrendous proportion, exposing the gangrenous heart of a part of our society, which not only killed a helpless dalit family in the most inhuman way for no fault of theirs, but also its socio-political and state machinery including the police connived the cover-up the dastardly diabolic crime from being exposed. This has happened in 21st century India. Can you still call “Mera Bhaarath Mahaan!”Now that, Bhaiyalal Bhotmange has passed away, 'will the divided Dalit fraternity take it further or will the Civil Society pursue it to further the ends of justice?' has to be seen. What have we come to Oh Poor Mother India! 

J.Shriyan 


with inputs from the writings of Prof. Anand Teltumbde, a professor at IIT Kharagpur and is a grandson of late Balasaheb Ambedkar, architect of the Indian Constitution.

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