This incident was barely ten days after the Hathras atrocity. Thousands of kilometers away in Arunachal Pradesh, Ranjana (name changed) was declared guilty by a Kangaroo court.
“No it wasn’t a love affair, but Ritul (name changed) was aware of my state. He knew that my husband for five years brutally assaulted me every day. I had a miscarriage when he kicked me in my abdomen one night. After that there was one more miscarriage. I had to be admitted once in the hospital when the brutality was extreme. My mother-in-law sided her son to hit me and this was routine. Several meetings between my family and the in-laws were not fruitful and my fate did not change,” says Ranjana with her head covered with a scarf.
“I had refused Ritul’s proposal of marriage as he said things shall change for me,” added Ranjana.
Married to Dibeshwar Deuri (name changed), Ranjana eloped with Ritul who was a married man of the same village and fled to Tinsukia in Assam in the middle of September 2020 in search of a better life and an understanding life partner.
“Nitul’s family contacted us and called us to the village. They assured that they would accept and embrace us back in the family. Initially we refused but later we thought to go and be with our own family. It was at midnight on September 25 that we reached our village in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh,” says 20-year-old Ranjana.
According Lekang’s Women Welfare Association of Narcotics Cell, on the ill-fated night, almost whole of the village gathered while some elderly women pulled Ranjana out of the vehicle and ripped apart her clothes as soon as she reached Nitul’s village.
She was bathed with cold water in the dead end of the night and then the elderly women chopped off her hair as a punishment to her heresy. Then women took turns to tear off the remaining clothes, stripping her naked. While she tried to hide herself with her hands, few among the crowd hurled abuses demanding her to raise her hands.
While the mothers were busy meeting out justice, their sons were filming the helpless lady on their mobile. In the flash of the mobile torches she was lost in the darkness of shame and humiliation. Ironically, the videos were put on social media and made viral. Nitul too was beaten up when he tried to stop the irked villagers.
“I was made to sleep in a school room without any clothes. They did not give me food till next morning. I had bruises all over my body,” Ranjana said.
For the locals, the young woman has shamed the community and the punishment therefore should be exemplary. After this shameful incident, the villagers held a community meeting to discuss on the next phase justice. Ironically, none from the woman’s family was called, but Ranjana somehow managed to call her grandfather.
“The villagers decided to forbid Ranjana from marrying ever in her life, while Ritul was asked to snap all ties with her. It was unanimously decided in the meeting that Ranjana should be shunted out of the village. The decision was then conveyed to the old grandfather of Ranjana. When the old man demanded for justice for her granddaughter, the villagers decided to hand him Rs 40,000,” says Ruby Deuri, secretary of Women Welfare Association of Narcotics Cell, Lekang.
According to Ruby, the police has prepared a list of 38 people involved in the heinous act based on the FIR filed. Of which, 15 people have been arrested out of which nine are women.
“We shall fight for the justice of the woman. When the nation is battling Hathras, this one is definitely shameful. More so when women involve themselves in such heinous crime,” added Rubi Deuri.
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