In a month that was dominated by the controversies circling around Jawaharlal Nehru University, the news of a teenaged girl allegedly raped and burnt to death came and went without evoking much by way of either outrage or protest. The incident was relegated to mentions in the city pages of Delhi newspapers, barely reflecting the horrific nature of the crime. About an hour away from the national capital, her parents are still awaiting justice. This is their story.

A village called Tigri

The first left-turn from the Greater Noida-Ghaziabad link road leads up to a signboard that marks the entry to Tigri Village. There is a big grocery store at the entrance of the village, which was full on the Friday morning that we had chosen for our visit. We were in Tigri, looking for the home of the 15-year-old girl who was allegedly raped and set ablaze on March 7. She died after two days of struggling with 95 per cent burns, in New Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital.

The entire village is still in shock and when we asked for directions to her home, we were greeted with pained expressions. The grocery store owner referred to the girl as “beti”, or ‘daughter’. “Beti aati thi meri dukaan pe,” he told us. “Us din bhi ayi shakkar kharidne. Yakin nahin hota wo nahi hai.” (“She used to come to my shop. She came that day too to buy sugar. I can’t believe she is no more.”)

Tigri is a small settlement in Uttar Pradesh, near Greater Noida. It’s made up of approximately 150 houses, one primary school and one secondary school. The village has both Muslims and Hindus. “We are a small village and everyone is very poor,” says Dinesh Kumar, a daily-wage labourer. “We don’t have the time to look into who is from which religion.” Kumar lives in the vicinity of the house where the tragedy had occurred.

The road leading up to the girl’s home is so narrow that we had to leave the car at a distance and walk by foot to the main gate. The house looks run-down and could very well be placed in a Delhi slum. The doorway is so small and low, we had to crouch to enter. Inside, the home is made up of two small rooms and a staircase that goes to the roof.

One of these rooms was the 15-year-old’s. Her books and papers are scattered all around. The family has kept everything as it was. The parents and younger daughter sleep in one room. The elder girl had her own room. “She was in Standard 10 and was preparing for her board exams,” said the father. “She had the tendency to read late into the night so we asked her to read in a separate room and sleep there.” Her sister, who studies in Standard 4, believes that the elder daughter will be back. She was the one who discover the 15-year-old burning. “He has killed my sister,” she told us, with tears in her eyes.

‘She said he has raped her and set her on fire’

The entire family is struggling to cope with what happened on that fateful morning and the girl’s death two days later. Her mother is under medication and bedridden. “I have given her birth and I had to carry the burnt body of my daughter for six hours,” she said.

The girl’s father, a tailor, has not been able to go to work since the incident occurred. Though wary of the media, he told us in painful detail the events that took place on March 7. The night before, the family had come home from a trip to Bihar. Exhausted from their journey, the family went to sleep.

“We heard the scream of our daughter in the morning at around 4,” the father told us. “Our younger daughter first heard her scream and went up to see what was happening. She then called us.” The parents reached the roof and found their daughter screaming for water. They first tried to douse the fire with clothes and then called the police and neighbours. “The police came within 15 minutes and then with the help of our neighbours, we took her to the district hospital,” said the father.

All the way to the hospital, the girl had asked for water. “She was asking for water and saying his name,” claimed the father, referring to the 18-year-old whom the family holds responsible for their daughter’s death. “She said he has raped her and set her on fire.” This “he” is a boy who, according to the family, had been troubling the girl for the past two years. “She was so scared that she planned to leave school and tuitions,” said the girl’s uncle. He says they “managed the situation” with the help of neighbours so that she didn’t feel threatened. Evidently no one had imagined there would be any further repercussions.

At the district hospital, they could only give the burn victim first aid. Seeing she had 95 per cent burns, the doctors told the parents to admit the girl in a big hospital. “We took her to Safdarjung Hospital and admitted her to the burn department,” said the father. He said she lost consciousness during this last journey. That’s why she wasn’t able to give any statement to the police and magistrate.

According to the father, while she was conscious, the girl told her parents that it had begun with the boy forcing her to come to the roof. He supposedly wanted to talk, but then raped her there and set her on fire. “It was pre-planned or why would he bring kerosene with him?” asked the father. “Our kerosene drum is kept in our room, and he didn’t use it.” He added that the boy must have climbed the roof to come inside because there’s no back door and the front door makes a noise. “Our main door is a shutter door, so if you open it, you hear the sound. The door was closed in the morning,” he said.

“How can I kill the woman I have loved?”

Tigri comes under Greater Noida’s Bisrakh Police Station, which is about 7 km from the village. The victim’s family filed a complaint against the accused at this police station. Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Rakesh Yadav, who is handling the case said, “We have arrested the boy on the basis of the complaint. When we arrested him, his hands had small patches of burns. The boy has denied the allegation of rape and claimed that he hasn’t set her on fire and that she had done it herself.”

When the police interrogated the accused, the accused claimed he was in a relationship with the girl for the past two years and that their relationship had been intimate. “The boy had admitted that they had a physical interaction that night but that it was consensual,” said Yadav. “How can I kill the woman whom I have loved for two long years, standing against the family?” the boy reportedly asked while being questioned.

The boy also told the police that he entered the house at around midnight, through the front door, which the girl had opened for him. “He said the girl forced him to marry her since they had been physical,” said Yadav. “But as she was a minor, the boy refused to do so. The boy has also said the girl took the kerosene bottle from the house and forcefully went to the roof where she set herself on fire. He said he tried to douse the fire. When he saw that her full body was burning, he got scared and left the house.”

No charge sheet has been filed yet and the police investigation is continuing. However, DSP Yadav had no hesitation admitting he was holding the boy’s testimony to scrutiny. “I don’t believe that the girl has burnt herself,” he said. “We have sent the samples of the kerosene container for forensic (analysis). The doctors have found several scratches and patches on her body, which can’t happen in consensual sex.” He said that even if the sex was consensual, since the girl was a minor, it’s a case of statutory rape and would be treated as such especially since the parents believe the sex was not consensual.

Yadav said the police will book the accused the under National Security Act (NSA) so that the boy won’t get bail within 90 days and then they will file a charge sheet. Although proving the murder will be difficult since the girl was so extensively burnt, he’s hoping the DNA report will make the case against the boy stronger. “We want to make this case as an example so that nobody dares to do this kind of heinous crime,” Yadav said.

The end of the road

On March 7, the girl was admitted in the Intensive Care Unit of Safdarjung Hospital’s burn department. The doctor under whom she was admitted remembers the case clearly. Since the case is under investigation and sub judice, he doesn’t want to be named and would not like to comment on the issue. He did say, however, that when she was brought to the hospital, the girl was unconscious and her body was fully burnt. “Ninety-five per cent burn is bad as 100 per cent,” he said. He also said that the DNA test would be critically important because her extensive burns would make it difficult to get results for anything else.

The doctor said the girl ultimately died because of blood infection, a common cause of death in such cases.

While the police and doctors continue the investigation, the girl’s family in Tigri hopes for “insaaf” (justice) for their child. The accused’s house is locked and neighbours say the family left the village after the incident took place. The girl’s family is unfazed by this development. Her illiterate mother said, “Samvidhaan usko saza degi, meri beti ko insaaf melaga.” (“Constitution will punish him and my daughter will get justice.”) In a village that gets rationed water and sporadic electricity, faith in the Constitution and the courts is held dear.

Yet can the brutal reality of what happened in Tigri be tied up into a neat bow with a sentence? What is justice for her younger sister in Standard 4 who looks at her didi’s books, her eyes blank with shock, horror and grief. It will be a long time before she forgets the sight of her sister, burning and screaming for help.