On the morning of 15 October, a heavily pregnant Savitri Devi was picking up garbage from homes in Khetalpur Bhansoli village in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr district. A passing rickshaw made her lose her balance, and Savitri, a Dalit, happened to touch a bucket by mistake.
The bucket belonged to Anju, an upper caste Thakur. For this unforgivable 'mistake', Savitri was brutally beaten to death.
Savitri's neighbour, Kusuma Devi, who claimed to have witnessed what transpired after Savitri 'defiled' the bucket, told The Indian Express:
Anju punched her stomach again and again and banged her head on a wall. She kept accusing her of defiling her bucket by touching it. Later, Anju’s son Rohit also joined in and they beat her with sticks.
Less than a week later, Savitri succumbed to her injuries. The post-mortem report, accessed by The Indian Express, said the cause of her death was "antemortem head injury". Her “fully-developed 44 cm male foetus” had died too.
Kusuma said she arrived at the spot after Savitri's nine-year-old daughter Manisha, who was with her mother at the time, ran back to the basti to ask for help.
When I and a few other women reached the spot, barely 300 metres away, she was still being thrashed by the mother and son. It took us a while to pull them away.
Savitri, who earned Rs 100 a month from collecting garbage from upper caste homes, was turned back from the hospital as there seemed to be no external injuries.
I took her home and asked her to rest, but she kept complaining of severe headache and stomach pain. Later, I visited Anju to ask her why she beat up my wife, but the family abused and threatened me. Finally, on 18 October, I went to the Kotwali (rural) police station to file a complaint. My wife was in too much pain and I had to take some action.Dilip Kumar, Savitri’s husband told The Indian Express
Tapeshwar Sagar, SHO, Kotwali (rural) police station said he had ordered a medical test, but since the results came back with 'No injury', a case was not filed. Two days later, when police went to the spot of the attack, eyewitnesses told them Savitri was assaulted by Anju and her son. An FIR under IPC sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), said Sagar.
On 21 October, Savitri fainted. Kumar called for an ambulance, but when she reached the hospital, she was declared brought dead. Since the injuries killed her, IPC sections 304 A (death by negligence), 316 (causing the death of the unborn child by act amounting to culpable homicide) and provisions of SC/ST Act were also added to the FIR.
Anju and her son Rohit have been absconding since 18 October. Only Anju's daughter Jyoti is at the house, and claims she does not know where her mother and brother are. Jyoti described the events of that day as a fight and claimed nobody was beaten or attacked. She claimed her mother suspected Savitri was stealing the bucket, and it upset her.
The relationship between the Thakurs and Dalits in the village is not very good. This incident has given them a chance to target us.Jyoti
The Thakur neighbours are also tight-lipped about the incident.
With Savitri dead, Kumar is now left with two daughters, nine and six, from his first marriage. His first wife died of malaria. With this pregnancy, Kumar, a daily wage labourer, had hoped for a son.
Meanwhile, Preeti, his six-year-old daughter, still thinks her mother and unborn brother are at the hospital. The basti women have tried to tell her Savitri has passed away. But Preeti is too young to understand.
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