“He (Mahendra) and the rape survivor’s uncle, who was recently moved to Tihar Jail, were neighbours and friends. They went to school together too,” 42-year-old Sagar, a milkman and a resident of the village told The Quint.
Outside the lawyer’s home in Unnao village, 70 km from Lucknow, the mood was sombre. Women trickled into the house to meet his mother, who wasn’t in any condition to speak, while men sat outside, concerned.
The lawyer’s younger brother, 38-year-old Pinku, was getting intermittent calls from well-wishers. “Ab behtar hai doctor log bata rahain hai,” (Doctors say he is better now) he calmly conveyed.
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First One to Get a Degree
From a family that has generations of farmers, the Unnao rape survivor’s lawyer, Mahendra Singh, currently admitted in Lucknow’s KGMU hospital, was the first one to complete his education and become a lawyer.
“Hum sab toh rahain unpadh. Usko hamesha se padhna tha,” (We are all illiterate but he always wanted to study) Pinku said, seated on a plastic chair under the big neem tree right outside their home.
Mahendra completed his schooling from government schools, then did his Bachelors from DSN College in Unnao and went on to do his LLB in Kanpur.
“Name of college, I do not know,” Pinku said. After completing his LLB, Mahendra went on to work for a lawyer in Unnao. After five to six years of working with him, he began his own practice.
Lawyer ‘Overtly Involved’ in Unnao Rape Case
His colleague and senior on the Unnao case, Ajendra Awasthi, said Mahendra was overtly involved in the case. “I used to keep telling him that he should not travel with the family. He needs to maintain distance and treat them only as clients. However, after the uncle went to jail, he felt like he needed to step up. So he did. Despite my warnings.” He added that Mahendra was the family’s friend and not merely their lawyer.
Mahendra lived barely 600 meters from the Unnao rape survivor’s home and was friends with the survivor’s uncle for years. Mahendra assisted him on multiple cases that were lodged against the uncle.
Recalling the last chat he had with Mahendra, Awasthi said, “We were sitting right here (in the Unnao court complex) and he was repeatedly saying we needed to get the uncle bail and get him closer to the family in Unnao as he was moved to Raebareli.”
The car in which the family met with the unfortunate accident was the lawyer’s. A white-coloured Maruti Swift Dzire he had saved up for and bought over the years, Pinku mentioned.
“The family was in severe financial stress. The mother used to sell cow dung for few rupees. They would often travel on his fuel,” Awasthi told us. Sagar adds that the uncle would come and speak to Mahendra whenever he was tensed. “He was his confidant,” he said.
Not Only the Survivor, but Lawyer Was Threatened Too
“I fear I can be murdered.”
These were the words the lawyer of the Unnao rape survivor wrote to the Unnao district magistrate on 15 July, two weeks before he was critically injured in a head-on collision with a truck in Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli.
The letter, a copy of which The Quint has, the lawyer had expressed concern about the threats they were receiving and had applied for a gun licence in September 2018. However, due to ‘influence and pressure from the people in power’, he had not got approval yet.
The DM Unnao Devendra Kumar Pandey acknowledged that he had received the letter and said, “While we got the letter, there was no formal application pending with my office staff for a gun license. The local police has to complete formalities before it comes to my office for approval.” His brother said he didn’t know as much about the threats, “Bhaiya humein kaam ke baarein mein zyada nahi batete the.” (My brother didn’t tell us much about work.)
After the matter reached the Supreme Court, the lawyer, for the first time in almost three years since the case, was given security by Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).
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