August 13th, 2004.
It must have been 2:30-3:00 p.m.,
when, inside the court premises,
Akku was murdered.
The court was on holiday on 14th August
otherwise this murder would have happened on the 14th
and if 15th August were not a national holiday,
this murder would have happened on the 15th.
The entire Vidarbha Ambedkarite Movement
had been hijacked
by so-called Urban Naxalites.
It was an arranged, planned…
murder.
Which had something very fishy,
which is still unexplored.
Akku thought he would barge into her house
and either rape her or murder her.
That was his intention towards Usha Narayane.
Usha dragged the cylinder over and said,
"Come on then, Akku!"
Then for the first time I screamed,
"I turned on the gas. If you barge into my house,
I will strike a match!"
That's when it all started.
Till then it had just been simmering.
Now it exploded.
This took place around midnight.
We were all in our houses.
Then she screamed,
"Help, Akku is here!"
People then realized
if we don't step out now,
generations to come, our wives, sisters, mothers won't be safe.
And so they opened their doors.
So many doors opened at once
then Akku got scared and ran away.
"Akku is escaping!" "Akku’s over here!"
Men, women, and children started chasing him with sticks.
-He slipped into the lane… -Her lane.
…and reached the sewer.
He jumped across the gutter.
Knee-deep in sewage water,
we went to Martin Nagar to find him.
We went right up to the railway tracks and the mental hospital.
We went all the way to Mankapur to look for him.
We split up, dividing our forces.
The next morning, I went around on my moped
and told everyone,
"Rise up! If not now, when?"
Then I went around to his hangouts in Kasturba Nagar.
There's a store owned by Meshram where he would buy cigarettes.
I warned that shopkeeper,
"Tell that dickhead not to mess with me.
I was once a bigger goon than he is."
I went to every lane and announced,
"If you don't step out today, you’ll never be able to."
She held a meeting and called everyone.
I went to fetch the boys.
I went door to door and called everyone.
I said, "If you don't come today, you will repent tomorrow."
We have to finish him off.
Will you support me?
We said we are.
But if anything went wrong, then what?
We agreed to stand together. To the end.
We drew courage from each other.
They said…
Akku may be his mother’s son, but we had also drunk tigress milk.
Let's unite and fight.
And from that day the hunt began.
From 2nd August,
for three days and two nights,
believe it or not,
we had flick-knives at the ready.
We had buckets full of rocks.
Chili water and sticks.
-Stones. -Stones.
If we saw anyone running, we thought it was Akku!
It almost became funny.
We were so afraid, don’t ask.
We could barely eat,
wondering if he might come and kill us.
Those who had left for fear of him
started helping us look for him.
"Are you not from this area?"
"Won't you come? Why are you not coming?"
They egged us on.
We caught the excitement and decided to join them.
Slowly, the mob became huge.
There were around 50-60 people with me.
I had become the nucleus of our group.
That August, nobody went to work.
We pooled in to feed ourselves,
set up a community kitchen.
Everyone pitched in,
small shopkeepers and such people.
An information network was put in place.
They devised their own system
to pass the information along.
They knocked on my door to check if I was hiding Akku.
I said, "Come and check."
They were checking all the houses, not just mine.
not just mine.
Since I didn't join them,
they barged into my place.
They thought we were friends so I might be helping him
but that wasn't true.
His old allies would cover their faces.
This mic won’t let me show you.
They would hood their faces with their shirts.
They wanted to kill him, too.
But until he was dead,
they didn’t want their enmity known.
By night, we would search for him.
By day we would petition the police.
We wanted serious action to be taken.
But all in vain.
They thought it was all fiction
and I was bluffing.
A police officer called me over.
"Bhaganbai, are you the ward president?"
I said, "Yes."
He was a Sub-Inspector.
He said, "Come along. Over here. You too."
We went, asked, "What?"
He said, "Get him. Beat him. Smash him.
Break his bones, we'll handle the rest.
Just don't tell anyone that I said this."
The police were doing nothing.
When we asked them to arrest him,
they said, "You catch him for us."
Why should we do that?
Then why did you become police?
That's when Chandra came…
and said to all of us,
"How can the police ignore us?"
She was a union leader.
"How dare the police ignore us?"
"We will hold a press conference."
It was our first time.
We didn't know how to talk.
We innocently told them everything.
Their questions were like,
"Who was raped?"
"Why did no one file a complaint?"
"Who did he murder?"
"How was he acquitted after the murder?"
"Why were there no witnesses?"
They turned it on us,
saying we were doing this for publicity.
"How can it be?" they asked.
"How can an externed goon not be arrested?"
One of the reporters even laughed at us.
Usha Narayane was enraged.
"Stay here for one day," she challenged them.
"We have lived all our lives here.
Try and survive here for a day."
We told the reporters
if a rapist can walk free
and if women continue to be abused,
then we'll mobilize the women and take the law into our hands.
We issued an open challenge.
The next day, we raked through the papers
to check what they were saying
and realized that nothing had been published,
we lost it. Our hearts broke.
What could we hope for?
The bleakness and rage of 5th August
made us demolish his house on 6th August.
Next day.
Believe it or not, we were more than 100 people.
Everyone was armed with hammers, sickles, other weapons,
and we brought his house down.
It was an expression of our anger and sorrow.
People were cussing him.
We were like Lord Rama’s monkey brigade.
We broke open his roof.
With bricks and stones, we brought down the walls.
Don't they say…
Ravana's kingdom was made of gold
but his ego made him vulnerable.
Lord Hanuman could use just his tail to burn Lanka to ashes.
What remained?
On the 7th August, Akku surrendered.
That was his strategy, conspiring with the police.
We knew the officer who arrested him.
They were friends.
I was in the lockup where Akku and I met
on the night of the seventh.
He was with me in the lockup all night.
His plan was to stay in jail until things cooled down.
That's what he told me.
He told me he was in to settle a feud.
His nephew, Dangrya, and he had a plan.
"Dangrya will kill one of them and get arrested," Akku said.
"When Dangrya’s in, I’ll go out and kill the other.
Our enemies will be finished and we’ll be free."
We got it…
he'd stay in jail for a few days and after things cooled down,
he’d come out and make our lives hell.
The thought that he might get bail
kept us up all night.
All of us, women and children,
would sit in groups on the rooftops.
We’d share our thoughts.
What is going to happen?
One might say, "If I spot him
I’ll attack him with chili powder."
Another would say, "I’m too scared."
We had no positive thoughts,
only negative thoughts of violence.
But we were driven to it.
Our discussions would circle the void
with uncertainties staring at us.
All day, all night, we only thought
of how to kill him.
Then his photo was published in a newspaper
and the caption was,
"Akku in police custody remand till 13th of August."
So he’d appear in court on the 13th.
Now this became clear.
This is it. Our last chance.
If he gets bail, we will surely die.
If he were released, God help us!
Kasturba Nagar would be wiped out.
The women resolved, "He must not live."
Through the night of the 12th, we kept thinking
how to go about it.
I knew the layout of the court, how he would be brought in.
We sat down and planned our entries and exits in court.
I wasn't the only planner there.
Many were making their own plans,
how best to kill him.
Now it was "do or die."
You can’t escape your karma,
be he my son, my grandson, or anyone else.
How long can a goat pray for its kid?
When it goes to the slaughterhouse,
no prayers can save it, no prayers work.
Now Akku had a date at the slaughterhouse.
That day, early morning, Chota Yadav, or whatever his name was,
came to me and said, "Sir, Akku appears in court today.
I request you, sir, to attend his hearing."
I said, "Okay, I will go."
He thought I might send a junior.
He insisted, "Sir, make sure you go.
Ask for cash security bail and don't deposit the cash."
Puzzled, I asked him why.
Then he said…
"Sir, they are planning to kill Akku."
There's a fabrication workshop in our area.
Opposite my in-laws’ home.
Weapons were made out of scraps of metal
and old weapons were sharpened.
Then some people left in taxis,
some by tuk-tuk, some walked, some took the bus
but when they left their homes they had made up their minds.
It's him or us.
Everyone was going, so we tagged along.
My brothers discouraged me from coming to court
but I said, "I’ll watch from far away and come home safely."
We wanted to see how it happens.
When their resolve was firm, I felt I should join them.
He had tortured me as well so I wasn't going to be a bystander.
I had to go and so I went.
They finished their chores, didn't bother about food,
and marched off to the court
as per their arrangements.
With families, with children, all of them arrived at the court.
That day, all of Kasturba Nagar was there.
A few in the family court,
a few here, a few there, scattered everywhere.
I was at the family court.
We mingled among the others
so no one could tell we were together.
We mixed with other folks.
I met Advocate Surendra Gadling, my senior, a good lawyer.
I told him what was about to happen.
He warned me to distance myself from this stupidity
and asked me to keep away.
One of the senior ladies
hid some solid stones in her sari
and carried chili powder in her blouse.
She gave some to me as well.
She said, "If he runs towards you, throw this on him."
All of us collected so much chili powder.
Someone would say, "He's here!" and women would stand up."
"No, it's somebody else."
We’d sit down again.
"Time's up. He isn't coming."
Were they bringing him? Were they not?
Where was he? Central Jail? Police station?
A constable came to escort us to court.
There were four of us.
Akku said to me,
"Ram, let’s get handcuffed together."
I agreed.
So we were handcuffed together.
My right hand
and his left hand.
Tired of waiting, we decided to have tea.
Some women sat down near the gate for some tea.
They were about to sip their tea
and that's when…
When he entered, he first stared at everyone.
All the women stopped having tea.
Some said, "I'm heading back home."
They were scared.
But other women said, "This is no time to step back.
Now you kill, or you die."
When Akku saw everyone was present,
he groomed his mustache arrogantly…
Arrogant, taunting.
That scared some people.
Some hid their faces in fear.
They didn’t want him to see them.
For all our planning, who would bell the cat?
One of the ladies, whose tenant he had raped,
was full of pent-up rage.
At that moment, Akku said to her,
"You didn't learn your lesson.
I’ll deal with you once I'm out."
She screamed, "Pimp!" and threw her sandal at him.
Immediately after that, chaos broke out.
The mob began to chase him.
The police were at a loss.
They slammed the channel gate shut.
We shouted, "Get out of the way and open up!"
"Out of the way and open up!"
Like monkeys in a cage, they were shaking the bars
and the situation got more charged.
The head constable closed the channel gate and sent us in.
Two ladies were standing there.
Fearlessly, they threw chili powder in our faces.
I managed to shield my face and it fell to the floor.
Women broke down the door and barged straight in.
They ignored the lawyers, the police, the magistrates.
Their focus was only on Akku.
He was fenced in from all sides.
Then they gave it to him.
He couldn't escape. He couldn’t run.
No way out. He was trapped.
Our entire staff was watching, stunned.
One after the other, wasting no time.
They hammered him. No stopping. No respite.
The glass table top?
They smashed it on his head.
They went out, brought rocks, and crushed his head with them.
They did this at least six to seven times.
Our hands were cuffed together.
I pulled my hand away.
His back was against my knees.
I hid behind him while he was on me and they attacked him here.
I was trying to save my hand.
My attention was not on him. My attention was focused just on my hand.
Every time he tried to shield himself with his hand,
I would pull it back.
"You’re going to die. Why should I lose my hand?"
One could see the courtroom through the broken wooden door.
I peeped in a little and saw a boy…
come out with a knife.
The knife had bent.
He straightened it with a rock.
And returned to the attack.
The knife would jam in his ribs.
They would yank it out, straighten it.
A knife bends on the bones, right?
They would straighten the knife and stab again.
His screams were drowned
in the baying of the mob.
I could visualize everything.
I didn’t see who was killing but I knew who were involved.
Akku kept saying, "You’ll regret this!"
They replied, "Motherfucker!
We’ll face our karma later.
But first, you must die!"
And then…
They ripped his ears off.
They chopped his this and his that,
and even his those.
There was blood all around.
He was reduced to ground meat.
His genitals were chopped as well.
That was the women’s doing.
Their minds were volcanic…
those he had stripped naked, tortured…
All of them…
Then the women came into their own.
Their hair wild, their saris tucked in,
their blouses were askew…
In that moment, they were in a frenzy.
Women, men, and boys,
everyone wanted to kill him.
Men killed Akku Yadav.
They were his friends.
The men he spent his life with,
they killed him.
They were from his area.
How they beat him!
They kept at it as if they thought he was still alive.
No, there was some life left.
They kept hacking his corpse.
Chaos. Confusion. Dead? Alive?
What was happening? No one knew.
And so, panic!
They were all over the place,
running helter-skelter.
The door of Courtroom 7 was shattered.
There was blood everywhere.
I had worn heels that day
and under the heels of my sandals,
flowed Akku Yadav’s blood.
One sense that I remember is that…
fresh smell of flesh and blood.
You know.
His body was lying near the witness box
and the accused with him,
Ram Gedam,
was cowering there, like this,
still handcuffed to the corpse.
When the police arrived,
I said, "Set me free. If he isn't dead yet, I will surely die."
"What if they come back?"
Then they uncuffed me.
I told them I was hungry.
I hadn't eaten all day. So they ordered a plate of samosas.
I was covered in blood but my hands were clean.
I ate those samosas, drank some water, and smoked a bidi in the van.
The relief you feel after your last exam?
Especially when it has gone well.
Or better than expected.
That bliss.
That was what I and all of us felt.
"On the 13th of August 2004, in the Nagpur District Court,
the murder of dreaded goon Akku Yadav
at the hands of working-class women
is an example of the futility of the present system.
In its investigation, the Fact Finding Committee found that
the police had failed in carrying out their responsibility.
The judiciary and the administration were also implicated.
This incident is neither a result of caste conflict, nor a gang war,
nor was it the work of any extremist political organization
as was being projected.
In the face of an insensitive, corrupt and biased system,
when women saw no hope of justice,
and Akku's oppression crossed all limits
women finally decided to snatch justice for themselves.
This incident is a warning for the existing system
that people will not tolerate injustice beyond a certain point
and will not endlessly wait for justice."
Fact Finding Committee, Nagpur.
We have to legitimize an illegitimate thing,
an illegal thing.
Killing somebody is not my right.
It's not constitutional. It's not justice.
If a mob punishes criminals in this manner,
I believe our social order will collapse.
Why does a mob kill?
If you have their trust, will they do it?
If the administration or police had reassured them,
"Yes, we have noted your complaint,"
if they had our trust, this wouldn’t happen.
Of course, the fundamental question of the legal justice system
failing in its duty remains but…
does that mean we can legitimize the lynching and killing
of a dreaded criminal?
If only the Commissioner or the ACP or the DCP had understood
what those women went through,
how they wept in their hunger and hardships.
If they had seen it this way,
they would have thought of the women in their families.
Don't they have daughters, mothers, sisters, wives?
Everyone has a family!
Their families must be protected while the families of the poor suffer?
Is that justice?
Only the poor face such atrocities and so make their own justice,
They have taken recourse to weapons.
Have you ever seen this happen in an upper-class society?
"Were you involved in Akku Yadav's murder?"
people used to ask us at work.
Some people didn’t let us work.
"They have murdered, they might harm us as well."
So we were sacked.
My parents had to pawn their valuables
to bail me and my brother out.
No one supported us financially.
Who can we tell our litany of woes?
If they need something, who can they ask?
Who can they ask for justice?
Or even a piece of bread? Who sees us? Who hears us?
Who acknowledges our identity?
We were already poor,
this case broke us further.
We lost jobs and opportunities.
We lost respect and our image.
We suffered many hardships
and then the court delays completely derailed our lives.
The Akku Yadav murder case which shook the nation
will reach its conclusion today.
Along with 7 women, 21 others were charged.
Three of the accused have died during the trial.
This case grabbed worldwide attention,
all eyes are fixed on the verdict.
November 10th is my daughter's birthday.
She said, "Papa, don't go today."
It was an emotional thing.
I cried.
She is very close to me.
She wouldn’t let me go. She had never stopped me before.
One feels, is this a bad omen? Will something bad happen?
And at 4:00 p.m., we were called inside for the judgment.
We sat nervously
and the judge said…
"Go, I let you free."
Let us free?
For a few moments, we froze.
We couldn’t express what we felt.
We were turned into statues.
I started running.
I was delighted knowing that the judge let me free.
So I pushed my way out.
I was out of there, the first one to leave.
Then Judge Suryavanshi
spoke as if at a press conference.
He addressed the press and went on to say what he shouldn't have.
After all, he is also human.
He said, "As you sow, so shall you reap."
Those were his words.
Examination of the four eyewitnesses by the public prosecutor
couldn't stand up for various reasons.
Hence, all the accused have been found "not guilty."
THE VERDICT CAME AFTER 10 YEARS
MOB DOES NOT HAVE A FACE!
If everyone is innocent, then he is still alive.
Nobody killed him.
All the accused were found innocent, right?
So if they didn't kill him then shouldn’t Akku be alive?
On the subject of justice…
If justice had been done through the legal system…
then maybe today…
I wouldn't be sitting here like this.
-No one gave us justice. -Is this justice?
We fought and took our own justice.
Our bodies had to be transformed
into lawyers, magistrates, and judges.
All within ourselves!
We took care of ourselves.
What justice did we get?
Those whose lives he destroyed
they haven’t got justice even today.
No, Akku's family got no justice.
As he died in custody, his mother deserved support.
Her son was killed brutally in custody, right?
The government should have compensated her.
All Akku’s bad deeds got buried with him.
Cases can’t be filed against the dead.
But his victims should be compensated.
Shouldn't they get something?
The dignity they lost, what about that?
I remember those days and I still shiver!
-We're grateful to be alive. -How long we suffered!
Do you understand?
-I have suffered a lot! -I suffered a lot.
I had a family to look after.
My daughter was of marriageable age.
I had to hide my daughter from him.
I hid her in a water tank, in Manakapur.
Yes, we had to hide our daughters…
I sent my son to his in-laws for fear of him.
I would starve for days.
He had made my life a living hell.
Do you see?
We can’t stop crying when we remember those days.
He will never be given entry into God’s house.
I curse him!
His soul will wander like a dog.
It will never find peace.
Every year on the 25th of December,
I remember what had happened to me.
I hold it in the silence of my heart.
Sorrows, like knots, remain tangled forever.
We never forget them.
We forget happy memories but sad ones leave scars.
We always remember them.
What is the truth?
Is it just outrages, violence, murders, rapes?
Is that all?
But the whole experience?
What we lived through? The hardships we faced?
Year after year.
What people said was published,
incidents were recorded, but what of the pain we endured?
Every single day.
So much suffering each day…
It’s beyond words.
Subtitle translation by: Bharath VH