The Khairlanji Verdict

The eagerly-awaited verdict on the Khairlanji case is out. The fast track court trying the most notorious case of caste violence in recent memory has sentenced six persons to death, and two have been given life sentence.

The verdict has been hailed as a landmark judgement on account of two things. First, in a nation not exactly known for speedy trials, the verdict has come less than two years after the crime was committed. Second, by awarding six death sentences among eight accussed, the judge has sent a tough message.

Having said that, a number of activists who have been following the Khairlanji case for a while now are deeply upset that the judge has not charged the accused under The Prevention of Atrocities Act.

In 1989, the Government of India passed the Prevention of Atrocities Act (POA), which delineates specific crimes against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as “atrocities,” and describes strategies and prescribes punishments to counter these acts. The Act attempts to curb and punish violence against Dalits through three broad means.

Firstly, it identifies what acts constitute “atrocities.” These include both particular incidents of harm and humiliation such as the forced consumption of noxious substances, as well as the systemic violence still faced by many Dalits, especially in rural areas. Such systemic violence includes forced labor, denial of access to water and other public amenities, and sexual abuse of Dalit women.

Secondly, the Act calls upon all the states to convert an existing sessions court in each district into a Special Court to try cases registered under the POA.

Thirdly, the Act creates provisions for states to declare areas with high levels of caste violence to be “atrocity-prone” and to appoint qualified officers to monitor and maintain law and order.

One reason why the Khairlanji case attracted such a lot of media attention was because all those killed were Dalits. Even the fast-track court was set up by the Maharashtra government to assuage the Dalits who were angry over the initial inaction by the authorities even three days after the Khairlanji massacre.

If ever there was a crime that should have been tried under the Prevention of Atrocities Act, then it should have been the Khairlanji case.

For those not familiar with the case, on September 29, 2006, a group of villagers in Khairlanji village in Bhandara district in the western Indian state of Maharashtra forcibly entered into the house of one of the residents, Bhaiya Lal Bhotmange. Bhotmange wasn't at home at that time. The crowd dragged Bhotmange's wife, his teenaged daughter and his two sons out of the house, beat them with stones, iron rods and anything else that they could get hold of.

The four members of the Bhotmange family were dragged into an open area about 50 yards from their house. Bhotmange's wife and daughter were stripped naked and gangraped by the villagers until they died. His two sons were beaten and stabbed, their bodies repeatedly thrown up in the air and, according to eyewitnesses, the lynch mob cheered as the bodies crashed on the hard ground. It went on until both the boys were dead.

The Bhotmanges were among four Dalit Buddhist families who lived in Khairlanji, a village dominated by OBC (Other Backward Classes) families. Unlike most Dalits in the area, the Bhtomange family was comparatively well off. The two sons worked with their parents on their land and daughter Priyanka was in her final year of school.

Over the years, there had been several run-ins between the upper caste members of the village and the Bhotmanges. Once the standing crop of the Bhotmanges was destroyed. On another occasion, an attempt was made to forcibly carve a road through the Bhotmange land. What upset the upper caste villagers most was the pride, and the lack of subservience, with which the Dalit family conducted their life.

Matters came to a head when a family friend of the Bhotmanges was beaten up by a group of villagers, and Bhotmange's wife and his daughter identified nine men as the culprits. Later, when they were released on bail, these men led the angry mob which attacked and brutally killed four members of the Bhotmange family.

Curiously, the judge trying the Khairlanji case has ignored the history of animosity that existed between the upper caste villagers of Khairlanji and the Bhotmange family. In his judgement, he described the incident as "revenge killings", thus absolving the accused of the caste violence charge.

A few NGOs are also upset that of the 48 people initially arrested and tried for the case, only eight were eventually found guilty by the judge. This, despite the fact that almost every eyewitness called to testify in the trial, deposed before the court that a mob of at least fifty people had attacked and killed the Bhotmanges.