Jharkhand: Women’s safety in rural areas causes concern

Ranchi: A barbaric incident of gang rape and murder in Jharkhand’s Chatra has once again sparked a debate over women safety especially the minors living in rural areas.

The state government led by chief minister Raghubar Das has come under intense fire after the family members of the Chatra victim opted to approach the local village panchayat for justice rather than the police.

The village panchayat, in order to hush up the incident, asked the main accused to do 100 sit-ups and pay a sum of Rs 50,000 as fine. Irked by the decision, the main accused along with his friends barged into the victim's house and burnt her to death.

The police later arrested 16 persons including the main accused Dhanu Bhuyian, village Mukhiya Tileshwari Devi, and Panchayat Samiti member Ranjay Rajak.

A 16-year-old girl after being abducted from a wedding ceremony was gang-raped by four men on May 5. The horrific incident emerged at a time when there is a public anger over growing cases of child rapes across the country.

Social activists blame backwardness, lack of awareness and influence of powerful people in rural areas for incident like the one in Chatra. Activists working for women rights say that most of the cases go unreported as the victims and their family fear backlash from the accused. “In rural areas, people come under the influence of powerful people with some political backing. In this particular case also it seems that the girl's family acted under the pressure of few people and went to the village panchayat for justice,”, Rahul Mehta, a child rights activist.

Sources claim that family members of the victims have been avoiding direct contact with social activists who are trying to counsel them after the incident.

A member of one such social group said that “activists have been facing difficulty in talking to them about the incident as they are usually surrounded by  village people.”

She said, “The local villagers even tried to blame the victim for the incident. When some of the activists tried to approach the family they found them unable to speak openly about the incident out of fear..”

In the Chatra case, all four accused of rape and murder have been booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses Act (Pocso).

“Although the police didn’t leave any stone unturned in providing support to our family. I still would like to pray for a stricter punishment for all accused,” said the victim’s father after police arrested 16 people in the case.