RAMANAGARA (KARNATAKA): In a shocking diktat, a rape victim has been asked by the leaders of her village community in Karnataka’s Ramnagara district to pay a fine of `20,000 if she wished to be integrated back into the society.
Even her brother has disowned her following the sexual assault on her two years ago.
The victim, now 18 years old, is an orphan and the mother of a male child. Her child has been sent to an adoption home.
She was raped in the same village when she was 16 years old and became pregnant, following which the Child Welfare Committee shifted her to a State Girls Home in Mysuru. She was subsequently shifted to a girls’ home in Ramanagara when she turned 18. She is now staying at her aunt's place.
This khap panchayat-like justice was given a week ago by her community heads.
“I am helpless. The leaders are forcing me to cough up `20,000 as penalty if I must be accepted into the social life of the village,” she said.
The ostracised victim has been desperately trying to mobilise money to pay the fine but has not been able to do so. “The district administration should intervene to save me from my terrible plight now,” she pleaded.
The victim’s brother, who is her only surviving family member, is not at all supportive. He refused to allow her to step into their home and verbally abuses her whenever he sees her.
She returned to her native village in January this year from the girls home in Ramanagara. She said her relatives often humiliate her, accusing her of eloping. “They have disowned me. I sometimes feel like committing suicide,” she said.
She lost her mother when she was a child and her father died two years ago.