Khairlanji: How the Demon Played Out the Dance of Death

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Khairlanji: How the Demon Played Out the Dance of Death

Nagpur, Dec 28 (IANS) Surekha Bhotmange was running for her life but was dragged by a mob that stripped the Dalit woman and beat her mercilessly with wooden sticks and bicycle chains. Her head was then banged repeatedly against a wall to ensure her death, according to the CBI charge sheet in the Khairlanji killings that shocked the nation.

Surekha's 17-year-old daughter Priyanka was dragged out of her hiding in a stable and done to death in a similar manner and so were her two young brothers Sudhir and Roshan - the latter partially blind.

While thus killing the four members of the Bhotmange family, the frenzied group was hurling invectives referring to their caste.

Their job done, the mob comprising people belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBC) heaped the four bodies in a bullock-cart and threw them in a canal one and a half kilometers away.

They did not forget to warn onlookers in the village of dire consequences if they spoke a word about what happened before leaving the blood drenched surroundings of the Dalit household.

The gory details of the demonic dance of death that Khairlanji in Maharashtra witnessed in the twilight hours of Sep 29 come from the 200-page charge sheet the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed in a court Wednesday.

The Dalit killings sent shock waves across the country, triggering violent protests at several places and creating uproar in the state legislature. United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi said the incident has 'made us hang our heads in shame'.

Bhaiyyalal, the sole survivor of the Bhotmange family who could manage to flee before the mob swooped down on his house, has been given cash compensation and a government job that could hardly help him forget the nightmare.

It all began Sep 3 when Siddharth Gajbhiye, a family friend of the Bhotmanges, slapped one Sakru Mahagu Binjewar inside Bhaiyyalal's house. Sakru, whose wife worked as a labourer on Gajbhiye's farm, had demanded her wages from him. During the wordy duel that ensued, Gajbhiye, a wealthy and influential police patil of the adjoining village, slapped Sakru.

Sakru and his friends thrashed Gajbhiye the same evening in front of Bhaiyyalal's wife Surekha and daughter Priyanka.

In their statement to police along with Gajbhiye's complaint about the beating, the two women 'implicated' 12 people against whom they allegedly had an axe to grind when actually only four people had assaulted Gajbhiye.

On being released on bail Sep 29, the 'wronged' friends of Sakru, joined by some others in the village, marched straight to Bhotmanges' house and settled the scores.

The Bhotmanges lived on the outskirts of the village in a row of about dozen huts atop a mound 'meant' for people belonging to scheduled castes and tribes. Their repeated pleas for small plots of housing land in the village of 120 households were allegedly ignored by the village council that the majority OBCs controlled.

Owning a five-acre farm that they themselves tilled, the Bhotmanges were a 'proud' family with their school- and college-going children refusing to pay obeisance to the 'socially superior' majority in the village and did not flinch from standing up to the bigwigs in land and other disputes.

They paid with their life for jealously guarding their self-respect.

Judicial custody of Khairlanji accused extended

Tumsar (Maharashtra), Dec 28 (IANS) A court here Thursday extended judicial custody of the 11 people against whom the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a charge sheet for their role in killing four members of a Dalit family in Khairlanji village.

The investigating agency sought the extension of custody so as to appear before the JMFC court in Mohadi - where the judge is currently on leave - for further proceedings and for completing interrogation of some of the remaining accused.

Those killed in the Sep 29 attack included Surekha Bhotmange, her young daughter Priyanka and two sons Sudhir and Roshan with only Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange, the head of the family, ducking the attack.

The 90-day limit for filing the charge sheet against most of the accused ends Friday enabling them to seek bail or discharge from the case. The appearance in the Mohadi court is a procedural requirement as Khairlanji, in Bhandara district, falls within the jurisdiction of the Mohadi police station.

The CBI had filed a charge sheet against the 11 accused in the case Wednesday. They are Gopal Binjewar, Sakru Mahagu Binjewar, Shatrughna, Mahipal, Shishupal, Dharampal, Vishwanath and Ramu Dhande, Jagdish and Prabhakar Mandlekar and Purushottam Titarmare.

The accused will be tried for criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly with lethal weapons and destruction of evidence as also for outraging the modesty of Surekha and Priyanka besides murder. No case, however, has been made for rape, as the charge could not be supported by evidence.

An offence under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has also been registered against them.

The accused in the case that has attracted nationwide attention were subjected to a lie-detector test as they were not forthcoming during interrogation.

The CBI charge sheet running into 200 pages contains statements of 159 people in the village with a population of less than 800. As many as 52 people had testified in the course of investigation that was done initially by the state police and then by the CID before the case was handed over to the CBI.

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