Taslim with her siblings

By Neeta Kolhatkar

Mumbai: While Mumbaikars began 2008 with the shock of the Juhu molestation, New Year’s Eve was a bigger horror for a 14-year-old girl in a village near Latur. Taslim was gang-raped, strangled and hung from a jamun tree in Dawangaon village, 10 km from Udgir, the police confirmed when contacted by DNA.

According to village elders, the girl paid with her life for protesting lewd taunts by a group of youths belonging to the majority community. This village in the Marathwada region has about 500 Hindu and 25 Muslim homes.

According to the First Information Report filed by Salimabi and Khajasaab Bagwan, their daughter was alone at home on December 31, when some local youths came to their door.

“They called out to Taslim and began eve-teasing her. She shouted at them and threatened to call her mother,” says advocate Khatib, who is also related to the girl. Taslim told her aunt Halimabi, who is a neighbour, about the incident and left in search of her mother.

According to the FIR, four youths intercepted Taslim in the nearby jungle, where she was gang-raped and later hung up on a jamun tree. “They were all from the majority community,” said the local police inspector.

Salimabi returned home late in the evening and was concerned about the absence of her daughter. It was then that Halimabi recollected how Taslim had complained of being harassed, and the two women and a few elders went in search of the girl.

“This was the most horrifying sight of my life - to see this innocent girl hanging from the jamun tree,” recalls Khatib. “The family is poor and belongs to the minority community. They were put under pressure to bury the girl and not go to the police.” The Bagwans are daily wage workers. Salimabi grazes cattle of village landlords, while Khajasaab sells vegetables.

The family buried the girl without the usual Muslim ritual of dressing her in white clothes, say her relatives. But later when they went to Udgir town for the Ziyanat ritual, some of the town's Muslim elders and youth took the Bagwans to the local police station.

“The parents came on Friday to register an offence and we registered an FIR immediately. We have booked all the accused under IPC 302 and 376,” said Sanjay Latkar, Superintendent of Police.

The police also exhumed Taslim’s body. The post-mortem report submitted to the police on Saturday said the the girl was “raped and died due to strangulation”. “The accused are absconding, but we will arrest them. Our search teams are scouting the nearby villages,” said the officer on duty.

The accused are Vijay Kumar Pathade (relative of a panchayat member), Pradeep Ramesh Patil, elder son of Shivaji Bakas Khede (not named), younger son of Maruti Bhande, Shivaji Mule, and Police Patil, according to the Udgir police.

Source : DNA