Family awaits justice as 2014 Dhaulana rape inches along in fast-track court

A Dhaulana rape-survivor has moved villages and is attempting to put the past behind despite a snail-paced case dragging on in a fast-track court.

They were an ordinary family with small-time joys and disappointments till masked intruders woke them up one night two years ago. The harrowing events that followed left deep scars and the family hasn’t recovered since.

The family’s matriarch shows the broken locks of a cupboard that was ransacked the night of July 19, 2014, in Ghaziabad. After robbing the family, the men abducted the daughter-in-law and allegedly raped her. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

“It was the worst few hours of my life,” laments the matriarch of the house. The family watched in horror as robbers who broke into their house on July 19, 2014, first stripped them off valuables and then physically carried one of the daughters-in-law to an adjacent field to rape. The crime done, some of them came back to help themselves to cold drinks from the refrigerator.

“Mujhe us raat ka sab kuch yaad hai” (I remember everything from that night), the woman says. She and her husband, along with two sons and their wives, had retired for the night in their house at the edge of the Dhaulana village of Uttar Pradesh’s Hapur district, not far away from Bulandshahr that made national headlines last month for the brutal gang rape of a mother-daughter duo.

But the robbers did not rest by taking away just their valuables. They set their eyes on the eldest daughter-in-law, ignoring the desperate pleas of her in-laws and husband.

But the family’s pleas for speedy justice are yet to be heard two years later.

The family has yet to replace the locks broken during the that terrible night in July, 2014. The robbers who broke in seemed to be aware of the family’s going ons, and that the younger son had been recently married.

The crime was followed by an outcry and protests outside the Dhaulana police station led to the arrest of two suspects who are in jail. But a verdict is still some distance away. “Although being heard in a fast-track court, proceedings have been held up by delaying tactics of the accused,” points out Jaivinder Singh, the victim’s lawyer.

Uttar Pradesh registers more than 3,000 rapes every year and the state’s western region — where Hapur is located — accounts for about a third. Officials say efforts are underway to quicken the pace of convictions that languished at 46% last year.

“Our aim is to get rape culprits get quick and strict punishment by the court,” insists Surya Kumar, the director-general of prosecution.

But that’s little consolation for the Dhaulana family that has fragmented since the ill-fated night. The daughter-in-law and her husband went away to live in another village for safety and to avoid “shame”.

No one stays at the ancestral home any more. The matriarch borrowed money to build another home at the middle of the village. She visits the old house only during the day to feed cattle.

The sudden down turn in their lives has left the woman bitter.

“Samman bhi gaya, izzat bhi gai... is se accha tha ki mar jate... (We lost belongings as well as our respect... it was better if we would have died),” she says. She has preserved the lock that the robbers broke open to enter the house.

Her victim daughter-in-law is, however, in a hurry to forget the ordeal. “At least people here don’t know about the incident. I don’t want to recall the incident anymore,” she says. It has been a nightmare that she does not want to remember.

This is second of a three-part series.

The alleged gangrape of a mother and her daughter at Bulandshahr in UP has put the focus back on crimes against women in the country’s most populous state. HT revisits some cases that are yet to see closure.