The Lost Innocence

In May, a minor girl was raped in a village in Latehar district of Jharkhand. Incidentally, the state is currently placed third in the country for rapes of minor girls

- Md Asghar Khan

ON a rainy August morning, we met Anjali at her mud house in an Adivasi village eight km from Mahuadanr block in Latehar, Jharkhand. She had just returned from school and was still in her uniform. A look of trepidation appeared on her face. Turning to her mother, she asked: “Who is he?” After the May 13 incident, she gets anxious any time she sees a stranger. Her innocence encourages us to hope that the shadows of fear will recede with time, but will the scars inside heal? Nine-year-old Anjali knows that “a dirty thing” was done to her. She clearly remembers everything from the day of the incident. Understandably, her family does not want her to relive it.

“He gave me biscuits. Then he said he would give me ten rupees if I came out to pee. He led me into the jungle, removed my clothes, and started doing dirty things. He told me not to make noise. When I started shouting, he silenced me. He then took me to the fields and did dirty things again.” 

Anjali goes silent. After eight to ten seconds, she resumes, “I was hurting a lot, so I said to him that I wanted to go home, but he took me to his house.”

That day, accused Arpan Kujur, 27, was with Aarti’s three children for hours in their mud house, which is near the paved road, with the door locked from within. When the mother returned from working in the garden at four in the evening, the door was still locked. She had to knock for a long time before the children opened it. Seeing Kujur lying on the mat inside, Aarti was shocked, and she began yelling abuses at him, after which he went out quickly.

Aarti says: “But he continued to loiter around the house. When we called the three children for dinner, we found that Anjali was not there. Our younger girl said that her sister had gone out to pee. When a long time had passed and she had still not returned, the whole village began searching for her. The next day my daughter was found in his house.”