The fate of two minor tribal girls now hangs in balance after a one-line verdict of their Samaj (caste organisation). “Draupadi and Kunti (name changed) are found guilty of eloping with a man of Gana (Scheduled Caste), thus they and their families are hereby ostracised,” went the verdict.
The elders and the leaders, some of whom even are influential members of mainstream political parties, did not try to mince a word against it as the judgement was of their community.
Draupadi and Kunti belong to a remote village of Nuapada district.
Draupadi, after passing her 10th Board exam in the year 2015-16, wanted to continue her study, which her poor parents could not afford.
Both she and her elder brother had passed the board exam in the same year. But by virtue of the male biased attitude of the family required, her brother got the opportunity to enter in to a college although Draupadi’s performance was better in terms of marks than her brother. Draupadi did not object but being dejected decided to leave home.
“I heard that there is scope for tribal girls to have free nursing training, thus I and Kunti left home in search of that, but reaching Khariar, we became afraid and changed our decision and took a return bus to our village after informing our parents about our location and the bus we are travelling back,” said Draupadi. Things would have been settled, had they reached their village safe. But destiny had something else to decide, which brought them the devastating consequence that they are facing today.
“A man of our father’s age, who happened to be our teacher in the local primary school, stopped the bus on the way. He said that our parents have requested him to guide us to have seats in nursing school. We believed him, as he was our teacher and returned to Khariar. He kept us at Khariar for a few days and misbehaved with us.
He then took us to Bhubaneswar forcefully making promises for getting us seats in a nursing training school there. At Bhubaneswar, he left us at an unknown place and disappeared. We were helpless and weeping.
Some people helped us,” said Draupadi. The girls returned to their home with the help of the CWC and the police.
The community members as well the villagers and those who listened to this story strongly believed that the girls had been sexually abused by the teacher.
“The girls do not reveal any such thing to the police or the magistrate, thus a case of kidnapping and forceful detention was made against the teacher, who got immediate bail from the court,” said a member of Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of Nuapada.
Meanwhile, Draupadi, despite the trauma, wants to read but feels helpless, as there is no one to help her.