Kanpur:
"Behenji, Mayawatiji, please ensure justice for my daughter so that what has happened with her today, does not happen with anyone else tomorrow. Please see the culprit gets strict punishment."
Badlu Ram's only daughter never failed to make him proud. The Dalit family celebrated the 16-year-old's grades by gifting her a bicycle- anything that would make it easier for her to stay in school, to chisel her way out of the prejudice in the village where she had grown up.
She is more of a hero than ever for her father as she battles for her life in the Intensive Care Unit at a Kanpur hospital. A weaker teen might have succumbed by now. But this is the girl who fought not one but three men in a field when they tried to rape her on Saturday. They retaliated by using an axe to slice off parts of her ear, her hand, her nose.
She was brought to hospital - after the friend who accompanied her managed to flee from the scene and alerted the villagers - with more than a dozen deep knife-wounds on her face. A team of orthopaedic, dental and plastic surgeons spent close to three hours trying to undo the damage. She still has to undergo further surgery.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today visited the Dalit girl at the hospital and promised all assistance to her, even as the main accused in the case was arrested in Fatehpur. (
Read: Rahul Gandhi visits maimed Dalit girl)
The man who allegedly led the other two in the attack - Shivom - was arrested today. He is 25. The axe he is accused of having used has been found. The charges against him are outrageously mild - of "outraging the modesty of a woman."
He delivers a new version of events now, one that Badlu Ram knows is untrue. ''I had an affair with her. She refused to marry me. So I got angry and attacked her. I am willing to marry her now,'' he offers.
Mayawati - considered by her voters so often as an icon of Dalit empowerment - has to confront chilling statistic.
The SC/ST commission chairman, P L Punia, says that only one out of ten crimes are registered against Dalits by UP police, and that also after court intervenes and orders the police to register a case.
Badlu Ram's wife breaks down as she shares that she has not given up hope for her daughter. Not just for the teenager's survival, but for her escape from a world that seems determined to show her where it thinks she belongs.
"My humble prayer is my only daughter should be saved. I want her to complete her education and get married. I am illiterate, but want her to be educated," she says.