The Nagpur Revolution

One of the most brutal tales of woman empowerment has been scripted in Nagpur's Kasturbanagar. Tired of suffering rape and terror unleashed by a local goonda, 150 women of the locality caught hold of him in the courtroom, dismembered him, sliced his genitals and stoned him to death. Shielded by the police, the slumlord had left a trail of rape, intimidation and extortion in the 10 years of his criminal career. The rough and ready justice administered to Akku by his victims has struck a chill in the hearts of his gangmen who are now either underground or thinking of alternate careers. Meenakshi Rao meets Nagpur's overnight women heroes who are on a victory trail and daring the goons to come near them

Nagpur is otherwise a quiet city, quiet and disciplined. On the crime graph, it takes only a bronze, with Mumbai and Thane doing the more respected (dis)honours for Maharashtra. But, for the past 10 days, it has been celebrating something it never would have dreamt of serenading - the lynching of a man in the courtroom by a mob of around 150 persons, mostly women.
For the record, the crime could not have been more violent. The victim was stabbed and stoned to death in barely eight minutes, but it took at least an hour to empty the small courtroom of the rampaging women and clear his debris. Then too, the police were unable to find his right ear which had been torn apart by an angry woman; his stomach was completely crushed and intestines sprayed all around him on the floor and his private parts were a picture of devastating mutilation. One eyewitness said, parts of his penis were chopped off by a woman attacker who said she had waited for 15 years to do this to him.

As the courtroom was small, only 40-50 women could get to Akku. The rest were standing at the door, yelling for their turn just in case Akku succumbed without their blow. Such was the mess they left behind that four doctors who performed the autopsy took six hours to figure out the body parts. The procedure was videotaped and Akku's body buried on police demand (for future exhumation if the women so demanded), instead of being cremated as per Hindu rites.

The room itself looks ransacked a week after the incident. The window panes are smashed, the furniture broken and the door in a state of disrepair. Stacks of paper dwarf the magistrate's chair, showing how delayed justice usually is. Bowing to popular fury, the police cordoned off the court premises for the entire day on Tuesday (when the bail applications came up) with no business being transacted by the court. Locals said this was the first time such a thing had happened in any Nagpur court.

As for the premises, killings are not new to this court. Two preceded Akku though those were pre-meditated murders by criminal elements. The last one to be killed was a criminal-builder Pinto Shergil who was done to death by his rivals who organised the entire show with co-ordinated mobile-to-mobile instructions and presence on all the three floors of the building. That case, which is yet to be solved despite a lapse of seven years, fades into insignificance when compared to Akku's lynching.

According to criminal lawyer Lubesh Meshram, who had fought Akku Yadav's cases earlier and saw how he was done to death in court that day, "in just a span of six to seven minutes after the women attacked Akku first with lal mirchi and then with guptis and stones, he resembled a dog run over by a speeding car."

Frozen clots of Akku's blood still peep out of the crevices in the wooden flanks under the judge's chair where Akku and his four accomplices had been standing, awaiting justice. But, for the public in Nagpur, it was one unlawful entry that the city needed desperately.

The women who killed Akku have become the toast of the town; their unity and solidarity is being quoted as a living example of courage; their angry outburst being justified as the retribution for their long life of frustration and fear. The act itself, howsoever violent, is getting lionised as a revolution against an impotent and corrupt police force, as also an answer to the malaise in the judiciary.

Considering that Akku Yadav, a 32-year-old slumlord, had not been punished in even one of the 14 heinous cases of murder and extortion registered against him in the past 15 years, the lynching takes an eerie inevitability. For, here was a criminal who had terrorised a locality of 400 families in the heart of the city and under the nose of the local police, perhaps, with their connivance.

His reign had lasted for more than a decade during which he is said to have raped at least 35 to 40 women in the Kasturbanagar slum area. Akku and his family of six brothers were traditionally into criminality. His late father was a known goonda of the area and is said to have groomed his "heir Akku" to carry on the family tradition. Extortions, midnight gatecrashes demanding food and ransacking of homes on the pettiest of causes were Akku's instruments of fear. The age-no-bar rapes his deviant obsession.

Residents of Kasturbanagar assert that any woman would do for him. "He once falsely accused me of making a pass at him and beat me into submission demanding that I admit it which I had to eventually due to the violent thrashing," says Shatibai, a 70-year-old grandmother of five children who could not have been happier with his death. "Aise hi marna thha usko. Agar hum use nahin marte to woh hamein maar deta," she adds without remorse. Violations of schoolgirls were too many to pinpoint. Then there were married women with daughters as old as his own sisters. Even pregnant women were not safe from his roving eye, his last victim being a seven-month pregnant woman.

Recalls Ratna Dhurvadongre, a middle-aged married woman whose flesh he had demanded from her husband some months back. "It was around midnight when he broke open our door and barged in asking my husband to produce me before him. He then abused me in front of him and told me to follow him. 'Aankh neeche kar ke khadi reh' he said, dragging me outside. My protesting husband was beaten up mercilessly and my two daughters ran out in fear from the back door. In the melee, I managed to run away and hide in the nearby bushes. Then, he suddenly left but I was too scared to return home.

Within half-an-hour I saw that he came back and barged into my tenant's house. She was alone with her pregnant daughter who had come home for her delivery. Without any provocation, he beat up the terrified mother, tied her up and dragged her into the courtyard. He then caught hold of her screaming daughter's hair and yanked her out. Next, he beat her up, tore away all her clothes and then raped her brutally even as she begged for mercy, as she was pregnant. His accomplices witnessed the entire incident even as Akku kept abusing the mother and instructing her to not close her eyes. After finishing with the poor girl, he then turned around and shouted for me. 'Tera bhi yehi haal karoonga' he yelled into the darkness..."

The unfortunate mother who was made to watch her daughter's rape passed out that night as did her daughter in a pool of blood. The two have since left the locality. The old woman is said to have lost her mind and her daughter did survive but lost her baby.

As Shantibai narrates this horror tale sobs come out of her inadvertently. So does anger. "Kya aise aadmi ko aap zinda rehne deteen," she asks you. Conversion to her cause is instant and one begins to understand why the entire city is supporting Akku's said victims. "Akku's killing was right. Prevent karna mushkil thha," says Advocate Prabhakarrao Marpakwar who is one of the 150 lawyers who have professed support for the women and have made an announcement that if charges are pressed against the five women who were released on bail on last Tuesday, they would defend them for free.

Marpakwar has many echoes, one of them being Muslim Bahujan Parishad president Javed Sheikh who announces proudly: "Nyay aakhir wahin hua jahan hona chahiye thha. (Justice happened to Akku where it should have happened - in the courtroom.)"

History lecturer Jayati Roy is, however, more circumspect and puts the incident into perspective: "These kind of incidents happen only when the desperation of the victim spills over. Women hate violence. Imagine how desperate these women would have been for them to have taken such a violent step. Of course, lynching cannot be made a norm but this one needs to be taken as a step needed to jolt the police and the administration out of their corruption." Adds Marpakwar: "If even this does not make the police clean up, Nagpur is in for a bigger happening."

Not that the cops do not realise that this time they have stepped onto a simmering lava of popular backlash. Manning the operations at the court, Crime Branch Additional CP Dalbir Bharti admits that the lacuna is with his department and that the "arrest of the five women was a blunder we committed under pressure to act." He, however, is quick on the defence and propagates the police theory that it was a clear-cut case of gang rivalry killing. "Akku's former associate and now his rival Eknath Chauhan wanted to teach him a lesson. So, he exploited the women emotionally and brought the mob to the court.

The stabbing was his handiwork and we are now looking for him." Caught on the wrong foot, the cops have gone into an overdrive, forgetting that the need is to honestly look within and cut out the malaise. The three policemen who were escorting "dreaded criminal" Akku and four others to court that day were unarmed. Also, they had broken the guidelines in not bothering to inform their seniors that the goon was being taken to court. They have since been suspended but every high-up in the department knows that the fault lies elsewhere. Bharti admits that action is yet to be taken against the Kasturbanagar police station men under whose nose Akku prospered for so many years and was sure to have returned as promised.

Much after his death and the release of the five women whose arrest had triggered a rebellion among the women to such an extent that they forced the judge to rule in their favour hours after the magistrate had reserved the bail ruling for another day, the fear continues to live on in the slum area. "Akku gaya to kya. Ab uska bhatija Vijya Dangriya hai na. Ab usko bhi marna padega varna who hamein kha jayega," says Babbibai, Eknath Chauhan's sister-in-law, showing you the battered down house of this man whom the police is now calling the main accused. Chauhan is absconding and Babbibai insists that he has been gone for more than eight months as "Akku ne usko bahut tang kiya hua thha."

Whatever the reality of Eknath and his association with Akku, the fact remains that the slumlord had terrorised the men of the locality as much as their women. Bhairam Bhaule is an example who is just about speaking out now. Just a week before Akku's surrender/arrest, he had dragged him out of his house, stripped him naked and burnt him with cigarette butts, in full public view. His mistake? Well, he refused to tell Akku where his neighbour (a maid) had gone despite the slumlord's express orders that she should not step out of her house without his permission.

Not any less despairing is the case of Kantibhai who used to run a wholesome kirana store business in the slum - till Akku's paramour opened shop. "I used to earn around Rs 3000 to 4000 a month from my shop. But Akku ordered that everyone had to buy the day's grocery from his woman's shop and go hungry if she ran out of stock. I had to close down my shop, leave my pucca house and shift to faraway jhuggi cluster. Now I am a daily labourer and am paying Rs 300 rent for that jhuggi," he tells you as other residents gather around, waiting for their turn of the spill.

Indeed, Kasturbanagar may have broken into instant celebrations, dancing and general camaraderie after five of its women accused of Akku's murder got bail and came home. But a walk around shows how much havoc the slumlord had wreaked on its residents. Scores of houses are either broken down or closed with nearly 30 families having fled from his terror. Anyone with growing daughters decided to make his escape before Akku took them away for a rape night out. Despite his death, they are not willing to return as "the situation is still very scary."

Akku's area is part of a fast growing slum population in Nagpur where migrant Oriya, Chhattisgarhi and tribal labour flows in at a gasping rate. According to a year-old official estimate, one-third (8 lakh) of the city's population lives in slums. Kasturbanagar is one of the 450 slums the city houses though it has the distinction having been regularised. Its residents are vendors, daily wagers or housemaids and mostly Dalits, tribals and Muslims. Alcoholism is a bane among its men and quick pregnancies the cause of the infant brigade growing relentlessly. According to Bharti, "almost every slum has its goon" but Akku's excesses had crossed the rubicon of tolerance.

He wonders why no rape case had ever been lodged against him, completely negating the possibility that fear was as fierce a deterrent as was social stigma and complete loss of faith in the police.

As social worker Bagubai Meshram puts it: "Who could risk reporting the rapes? After all, these women were either married or about to be married. Who would marry a rape victim. And who would save them once Akku made peace with the cops as he always did?"

None has answers to this query and herein lies the story of a city where rape, molestation and eve-teasing are incidents that happen much less than murder, thefts, extortions and property disputes.

The lynching of Akku Yadav has served three purposes in Nagpur - it has brought life back to a cluster in the heart of the city, it has the goons on the run and it has forced rapes, eve-teasing and molestations to pause - at least for now.

You could call it a revolution of sorts or a "rarest of rare happening" as National Commission of Women chief Poornima Advani said the other day.

Akku's tale of excess

So, what was Akku Yadav all about? At first glance he was just a slip of a man, somewhat underweight and looked rather harmless. According to the police, "he was just a tuchha criminal, a mere slumlord, not even a city level goonda." At 32, though, he had committed more atrocities on the residents of Kasturbanagar slum than Nagpur's real don had done on the entire city. For starters, he had a list of clear-cut instructions for the residents.

Rule No 1: No woman, be it a toddler or a grandmother, should be seen outside her house after 7 pm. "We have public latrines and many a time had to relieve ourselves in our house as we were scared to go out and be spotted by Akku," says Shantabai who still has a stab wound to show as an example of the slumlord's anger.

Rule No 2: Whenever Akku comes calling, they should cook food for him and stand meekly "keeping their eyes to the floor."

Rule No 3: Whatever Akku demands whenever, he should be given without a second thought. The residents being poor daily wagers, regularly fished out Rs 50 to Rs 100 after sustained beatings by him and his gang.

Rule No 4: Never think of reporting to the police. The threat: That would be their last day on earth. An example of this was the case of one Asha Bhagat who made the mistake of standing up to Akku and was done to death outside her house after being raped by him last year. "Once he beat up my son accusing him of troubling his paramour. I had to literally get my head crushed between his thighs to get my son away. I then went to report to the police. The cop made Akku sit inside with him and told us to wait outside till they had finished their tea.

Rule No 5: Buy all provisions for the day only from his paramour's shop. If she ran out of stock, go hungry that night or cook whatever you already have at home.

Rule No 6: Never say no if I want your daughter/sister/wife/mother for the night. If there was resistance, the family was beaten black and blue and sometimes even made to watch the rape that followed.

If this was the unsaid law of Kasturbanagar, Akku made sure his bag of atrocities was never empty even otherwise. He regularly picked up the colony boys (as young as 5 years) and forced them to go to the nearby theka to get his daaru for the night. Not just that, he then thrust the scalding liquid down their throat as helpless parents watched and then stowed away their drunk wards home for the night.

The children in Kasturbanagar had stopped playing out of their constricted homes. Many had dropped out of school as the slumlord had a dislike for literacy. As many as 20 families with growing daughters fled the colony, their closed houses a picture of decay and abandonment.

"The water in the tap at the centre of the colony used to come only in the evenings. But fearing Akku's backlash we could not go out to fill water after 7 pm. So, we had to store water for eight/ nine days whenever Akku used to go out of the colony on his own business. The stored water made our children sick but we could not do anything," says Kantabai Shinde.

Outside the slum area, Akku was fast growing in influence with political parties using him for polltime intimidation. The man terrorised the opponents of the highest bidder with no affiliation except money. According to criminal lawyer Lubesh Meshram, "he had started extortions from the posh Sindhi colony which surrounded the slum where he lived. "Though there are no rape cases registered against him, it was a reality that he had a woman obsession. I remember once his friend had approached me for an anticipatory bail for Akku who had kidnapped a minor girl and had been raping. The father of the girl had filed a missing report. However, he later came to me himself and asked me not proceed as the girl's father had withdrawn the missing report. Obviously, he had intimidated the family. The girl returned some time later in a bad condition but no one went back to the police."

The police now say that the rape claims are exaggerated. Kasturbanagar residents merely smirk their contempt for the police attitude. Strange though that such a petty criminal, as the cops classify him, could have triggered such a violent reaction among his area's women.

No wonder then that every action of Akku begot an equal and opposite reaction.

Source: The Sunday Pioneer, December 22, 2004

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