A metal pitcher, whose luster has faded with time, is sitting in a corner of the room. This is the same room that once belonged to him. Now only his ashes are left. She was just 19 when she died, a fortnight after she was allegedly gang-raped by four upper-caste men from Bulgarhi village in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district. The youngest of five children of a Dalit family, she was the princess of the family. Her grieving father now has only one wish. To complete the custom of immersing the ashes of his daughter in the holy river, to ensure that her soul attains salvation. But that will have to wait. We will not immerse the ashes in the Ganges until justice is done. We want all the accused to be hanged,” he says.
In the family’s simple two-room brick-and-mortar home – which is now guarded round the clock by a team of CRPF personnel – time stands still. And the memories of a woman brutally tortured while collecting fodder for her cattle haunt the survivors. Woman seriously paralyzed after being sexually assaulted at a Delhi hospital
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