The
high court in India's Tamil Nadu state has upheld the convictions of hundreds
of government officials for atrocities against tribals, including the rapes of 18
women, three decades ago.
The convicts include
policemen and officials from the forest and revenue departments.
They had attacked the tribals in June 1992, accusing them of aiding the dreaded sandalwood smuggler Veerappan.
They assaulted men and raped women, vandalized homes, and killed livestock.
The crime has come to be
known as the Vachathi case after the name of the village where it took place.
All the 269 accused denied
the allegations against them, but in 2011, a trial court convicted them,
pronouncing them guilty under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Act.
Seventeen of the men were also found guilty of rape.
As 54 of the accused died
during the trial, the remaining 215 men were sentenced to prison terms between
one and 10 years. The convicts appealed in the Madras High Court in the southern
city of Chennai.
A lawyer for the survivors
told the BBC that the convicts have all been out on bail. "Barring the 17
men who were convicted of rape, most others did not spend any time in
prison," she said.
On Friday, Justice P.
Velmurugan ordered the state to give compensation of 1m rupees ($12,034;
£9,844) to each victim and suitable employment, legal website LiveLaw reported.
The judgment also called
for stringent action against the then senior-most district official, forest
official, and superintendent of police, it added.
In March, Justice
Velmurugan visited Vachathi, located in the foothills of picturesque
Sitheri hills in Dharmapuri district.
What happened in Vachathi?
In the 1990s, forests, and villages in the area had seen intense search operations by law enforcement officials looking to catch Veerappan, India's most ruthless bandit who was accused of more than 100 murders, kidnapping, smuggling, and poaching. (He was finally killed by police in 2004.
Vachathi was often visited
by the authorities who accused the villagers of aiding the smuggler and being
involved in sandalwood smuggling.
On the morning of 20 June
1992, villagers and forest department officials clashed during one such
visit and one forester was injured.
According to court
documents, a few hours later, a team of 155 forest personnel, 108 policemen, and
six revenue officials raided the village.
They found mostly women and
children and a few old men in the village as most men had escaped to the nearby
hills where they remained in hiding for months.
The raiders went on a
rampage, mercilessly beating up men and women, ransacking homes, destroying
livestock and repeatedly raping 18 women.
More than 100 women and children were taken into custody and jailed for months under fake charges - 20 years later, the high court threw out the cases saying they were "maliciously instituted with an ulterior motive".
The Hindu newspaper called the attack an
example of "what brutal law enforcers and callous government officials
could do to the poor and the powerless".
The horrific rapes
A huge banyan tree in the
center of the village stands as a witness to the assault.
The villagers recently told Tamil that men, women, and children were made to assemble there and were
beaten up severely.
A group of 18 young women
and girls was separated from the group and taken to a nearby lake where they
were repeatedly raped.
One rape survivor, who was
just 13 then, said she begged the officials to spare her since she was just a
schoolgirl, but they ignored her pleas.
"They raped us, we
were beaten up, all over the village, we could hear people crying and
wailing," she said.
"After they raped us
near the lake, they took us to the police station and we were not allowed to
sleep the whole night. I was taken to jail along with my sister, uncle, aunt, and mother," she added.
When they returned from
jail weeks later, they found their grains and vessels thrown out, clothes burnt
and carcasses of their cattle floating in the village well.
The long road to justice
The tribals' fight for
justice has been long and arduous, with roadblocks delaying it at each step.
Officials initially denied
any wrongdoing. The police refused to lodge any complaints and courts turned
them away saying police and government officials couldn't have raped them.
It was handed over to
India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) following campaigns by civil
society activists and members of the Communist Party of India (Marxists).
In its report, the CBI
confirmed that the policemen and officials ran amok, thrashing men, women, and
children, and demolishing huts.
It is only with the support
of activists and the persistence of rape survivors that justice was been
finally serviced in the Vachathi case.
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