A month ago, heartbreaking visuals from Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain shocked the entire country. A girl, half-naked and bleeding, was seen roaming the streets knocking on many doors, pleading for help on September 25. For two hours, she passed by over 500 houses, eateries and a toll booth but no one helped her until a temple priest saw her, took her to a hospital and called the police.
She spent several days in the hospital fighting for her life, her story made headlines for several weeks, and the state government made big promises but the promises are yet to turn into action. Now, she is home and her health has improved but the wounds from hollow promises are fresh.
NDTV team reached the girl’s village near Satna to see her condition. The girl, looking visibly scared, was sitting inside her home – a thatched hut.
“No one from the district came to help me here, I graze goats. I did not get any help from the Sarpanch, no one came,” said the survivor’s grandfather.
The girl who was discharged from the hospital only 12 days ago (October 12), now walks a distance of 300 meters every day to fetch water from a hand pump with her aunt.
The family claims the village has two handpumps – one for the upper caste and one for the lower caste community.
“We are from the lower caste, that’s why nobody came to help us,” said her brother.
The victim belongs to the Scheduled Caste – Dohar – community, her brother said that is why the Sarpanch – who is a Rajput – and the administration did not help them. There are about 700 voters in the village, half of whom are from the upper caste, and half are Dalit.
The man who raped her – an auto driver who allegedly picked up the 15-year-old survivor from the railway station – was caught soon after the horrifying video went viral. The CCTV footage showed the girl, draped in rags, going door-to-door, seeking assistance.
Commenting on the incident, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had earlier said, “The accused has injured the soul of Madhya Pradesh, she is the daughter of the state, and we will take care of her in every way”.
When NDTV tried to ask Mr Chouhan the status of the benefits that the survivor should get, his reply was a ‘namaskar’.
The survivor’s neighbours say the biggest help they received after returning home was Rs 1,500 from a BJP candidate, Surendra Singh Garewar.
“Till now no one has helped then. She is buying medicines from the hospital. She did not get any benefit from the government or administration,” said a neighbour.
The family claimed that the only help they got from the government was a social justice pension of Rs 600 per month.
Statistics show that crimes against Dalits in Madhya Pradesh are higher than the national average. 50,900 incidents of crime against Scheduled Castes were reported in the country in 2021.
In Madhya Pradesh, this figure was 7,211. The crime rate against Scheduled Castes in the country in 2021 was 25.3 per cent, while in Madhya Pradesh it was 63.6%.
