The TLDR: Earlier this week—in the midst of a heady celebration of India’s daughters winning Olympic medals—a nine-year old Dalit girl was allegedly gangraped, killed and forcibly cremated in Delhi. The tragedy did not make front page news. This is her story.

Researched by: Sara Varghese

The little girl: was the only child of a poor Dalit family that lived in the Delhi Cantonment area. Her parents are ragpickers, and the family would often beg for alms at a local Sufi shrine. 

The killing & cremation: Here’s what happened:

• On Sunday evening, the family returned from the shrine, and the father headed out to buy vegetables. He asked the child to get some water from a cooler installed at the nearby crematorium.
• But an hour passed and the child did not return. There are two media accounts of what happened next. 
• One: The mother went in search of the little girl and found her lying dead at the crematorium: “Her lips were torn, her tongue was blue, her eyes would not close, and she had bruises on left arm. Her shirt and undies were wet. I couldn’t bear to look at her.”
• Two: The priest at the crematorium, Radhey Shyam, came in search of the mother: “Later, the pandit ji and some others came to me and said she was dead. I rushed to the crematorium.”
• But there is no discrepancy about what followed. The priest insisted the child had been electrocuted while trying to get water. And Shyam pushed the mother to cremate the child immediately—telling her, “Hurry up the cremation or the cops will conduct a post mortem and doctors will steal her organs.”
• Shyam also said: “You will be ruined. You are so poor, how will you fight a case? Your child will be cremated. There’s no need to call anyone. Just sit here. Are you hungry? Shall I get you some roti?”
• Within ten minutes of her arrival—the child was placed on a pyre and set on fire. The priest said: “Don’t shout. Don’t scream. What had to happen has happened. Now why are you screaming? Let’s finish this. And then he set my child on fire.”
• Shyam then told the mother to go home and “sleep quietly”—and come back in the morning to collect the ashes.

The suspects: Apart from Radhey Shyam (55), the others are two crematorium employees Lakshmi Narayan (43), Kuldeep (63)—plus a local resident named Mohammed Salim (49). Yes, these are all middle-aged men who allegedly raped and killed a nine-year old child. Local residents also had this to say about their activities at the crematorium:

“They would do all sorts of wrong activities there. They sit together the entire time — gamble, drink alcohol and even take drugs. We have also come to know that they would call young children to the crematorium and make them massage them.”

Point to note: Two women were raped inside the same crematorium in June. The suspects in that case are two Army men.

The police in (in)action

While the child was on the pyre, the commotion at the crematorium attracted a crowd—who broke through the locked gate and entered along with the child’s father. The priest and three other crematorium employees tried to flee, but were caught by the crowd—and handed over to the police who only arrived around 10:45 pm. Here’s what the police did then:

Puzzling inaction: They made no attempt to douse the pyre which was still burning. A witness said: 

“I asked them, ‘Why are you not trying to stop the fire? How will you collect evidence?’. They didnt do anything. When I tried to pour a bucket of water to prevent the body from burning, one policeman caught my hand and told me not to do that.”  

The villagers finally put the fire out—and all that remained of the little girl were her feet, bit of her scalp and hip. 

The harassment: They took the parents to the police station—where the two were detained for 15 hours, allegedly to record “their statement correctly.”  The mother says, “They took our statement and then just made us sit inside. We were given food only the next day.” She also claims that a man in civilian clothes beat up her husband and threatened to do the same to her: “He kept saying we were lying and that we should keep quiet.”

Resisting the rape charge: Police had initially only registered charges of culpable homicide, wrongful confinement and destruction of evidence. The mother says:

“We repeatedly told them that she had been assaulted sexually but they wouldn’t listen. They did this because she’s a Dalit. They took us to the police station and kept us there all night, until the next day afternoon. They tried to scare us and threatened us into taking back the rape charge.”

The neighbours confirm the mother’s account, but the police insists, “The mother hadn’t mentioned rape charges in her initial statement to the police, so it wasn’t added.” The rape charges were finally added after the family made a statement to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes.

The current charges: The case has been registered under Indian Penal Code’s sections 302 (murder), 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation), 204 (destruction of evidence)—plus other sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the SC/ST Act. The case has been transferred to the crime branch—and the suspects will be subjected to a lie-detector test next.

Point to note: The medical board which conducted a post-mortem informed the police that it was unable to confirm the cause of death due to the state of the body.

The fallout

Since Monday, the parents and local residents have staged a sit-in protest, demanding the death penalty. They recently received a notice to vacate from the Army due to security concerns. See a powerful image from the protest below:

Both Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi have spoken up and met with the parents—with Kejriwal promising a probe. BJP leaders, ministers and others have remained silent-except for spokesperson Sambit Patra who accused Gandhi of making political capital out of the case. 

FYI: Gandhi tweeted out this photo of his meeting with the parents, saying: “The tears of her mother and father say just one thing – their daughter, the country’s daughter, deserves justice.” But the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has issued a notice to Twitter India calling for action against his Twitter handle for posting pictures of the parents—which can possibly reveal the identity of the victim. See the offending photo below: 

The bottomline: In 2019, 87 Indian women were raped every day. There were 42,793 cases of crimes against Dalits in 2018—in other words, a Dalit was a target of crime every 15 minutes in India on average. In 2019, that number jumped to 45,935—an increase of 7.3%. Only 56% cases involving Dalit victims resulted in a chargesheet, and only 32% led to a conviction. Nothing about this case is rare or even remarkable—except that it took place in Delhi where the national media may pay passing attention.

Reading list

Like we said, there isn’t much coverage of this tragedy. Most news outlets have rehashed the basic set of facts without much follow up. The Print and NewsLaundry have the most detailed account of the case. NBC News has more on the protests and reactions from activists.