UP Dalit girl Mamta needs sophisticated plastic surgey for burn wounds

All India Christian Council

Post Box 320, Lucknow 226 001, UP



Press Release



UP Dalit girl Mamta needs sophisticated plastic surgery for burns wounds

Civil society concerned at rise in women suicides, rapes and anti-Dalit violence



Lucknow, August 12, 2011



The All India Christian Council, a national human rights and advocacy group, has offered to work with state government agencies for advanced treatment of Mamta, a Dalit teenage girl of Juhari village in Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh who sustained serious face and upper body burns on 2nd August in an alleged case of rape and assault. The Council has also extended its offer in similar cases of Dalit victims who need advanced surgery and rehabilitation, together with the pursuit of justice.



Although the state government is giving a compensation of Rs 25,000 to the victim at the registration of the First Information Report and Rs 75,000 on the filing of the Charge Sheet in the court, the victims need psychological post-trauma counseling. Burns victims also need corrective and cosmetic surgery on hands and faces as part of their physical and social rehabilitation, which is not available for poor victims from villages and small towns.



A fact-finding team consisting of National Integration Council Member Dr John Dayal, former Lucknow University Vice chancellor Roop Rekha Verma, retired Inspector General of Policed SR Darapuri and social activist Madhu Chandra visited Juhari village to investigate the incident. A team of National Women’s commission had also recently visited the village. The team interviewed the girl in the burns ward of the Sitapur District men’s Hospital, her parents and siblings in their village home as also a cross section of villagers, the District Superintendent of police, Piyush Mordia, Deputy superintend Vidya Sagar Mishra, Ramkot police SO S K Rai, senior medical superintendents of the men’s and women’s hospital Drs Chetan Raj Aggarwal and Kusum Massey and gynecologist Dr Nisha Pandey who had examined the victim when she was first brought to the hospital. The team also had access to the complete medical records, FIR and forensic records.



The medical and forensic examination reports, which arrived yesterday, have failed to either confirm or rule out the possibility of rape. The police said in the circumstances, they would continue with the investigations leading to a charge sheet covering rape, assault, and the anti-atrocities act. Though the police had called five young men of the village for interrogation, four were let off and one, Tuniya, son of Radheyshyam is under arrest. Tuniya, in his Twenties, is a married man but has notoriety in the village. The fact finding committee hopes the police will continue to pursue the matter with vigour.



Mamta is slowly recovering. She had sustained 35 per cent burns injuries of the first and second degree, covering all of her face, upper chest, parts of the arms, and parts of the scalp. The class 12 student of the local intermediate college remains deeply disturbed, occasionally incoherent. Though she had told the police initially that she was sexually harassed in the village by five young men, she had not informed her parents of an alleged gang rape on 1st august in the sugar cane fields. She also remained unsure of the names and number of men who had allegedly raped her. The only consistent name was of Tuniya. The girl in her “dysing declaration” to a magistrate,a statuory requirement in such cases, said she was raped by one man.



Despite talking to her and her parents, villagers the fact finding team could not prima facie establish the narrative of a gang rape, or how she came to be burnt. The team therefore refrains from making a statement on the source of her injuries and the identity of her assailant. We hope that sustained police investigation over an extended period of time, and once the girl is out of her immediate trauma, may be able to reveal facts that can be sustained in court.



It is however clear that the family of the victim has pending litigations with several of their immediate neighbours, who are also their estranged relatives, and with people in other parts of the village. These are cases relating to ancestral properties in which the victim’s father, Molahe Ram, a dalit, is involved in cross cases in civil and criminal courts. Molahe has four daughters, and a ten-year-old son. He has educated his daughters to the high school level. The victim, the third daughter, is said to be a bright student of class 12. She told us she wants to study further.



The population of Juhari village consists of about 50 per cent Brahmins. Dalits, mostly of the Raidas community and other castes make up the rest of the population. Villagers claim that though the upper castes dominate, there has been no inter caste tension in the village. Ramkot police station however reports an above average incident of crimes and violence in the region.



While the focus of the fact-finding team was on this specific case, we cannot ignore the data of gender and anti-Dalit violence in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Specific incidents of violence have to be located in the environment and the ethos. We note from official records that 1,757 cases of rape were reported from Uttar Pradesh in 2009 and 1,290 in 2010, of whom 558 were Dalit women. Even this year, till May, 706 cases have been registered – an average of 114 rapes a month. The National Crime Records Bureau and the National Commission for Child Rights reported in 2008 that out of 5,446 cases of child rape in India, 900 were in Uttar Pradesh. And these were just the reported cases as most children are frightened into silence and the violence is discovered only because of injury or other signs of trauma.



This fact finding tam therefore recommends to the governments of the State of Uttar Pradesh for a comprehensive plan which includes preventing measures of which sensitizing parents, teachers and children through a village level mass education program me, prompt police action, special units in hospital for corrective and restorative treatment and trauma care, and rehabilitation. A piece-meal approach will not sufficiently address this very serious national issue.



The All India Christian Council (www.christiancouncil.in), birthed in 1998, exists to protect and serve the Christian community, minorities, and the oppressed castes. The aicc is a coalition of thousands of Indian denominations, organizations, and lay leaders. Several aicc member organisations partner with the Dalit Freedom Network which has chapters in several countries and is focused on making slavery history by ending Dalit trafficking in India.



Released by





Madhu Chandra

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