The Burning Woman Of Unnao

On December 6, 2019, as India was reeling from a rape and murder of a veterinarian in Hyderabad, a 23-year-old woman ran down the streets of Unnao, in flames, crying for help.

A resident of Hindu Nagar, the woman was on her way to a Raebareli court to meet her lawyer. She was fighting a case against Shivam Trivedi and other accomplices for allegedly gang-raping her. As she made her way to the railway station, five people attacked her, including two accused in her case who were out on bail.

The individuals beat her with sticks, stabbed her, then doused her with kerosene, and set her ablaze. As a ball of fire, she ran until a local resident saw her and called the police. Grievously injured, she narrated the incident to the police on the phone, and named the accused.

Initially taken to a local hospital, the woman was then transferred to a Lucknow facility. Suffering 90 per cent burns, she was airlifted to Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital. After a 36-hour battle, she died; her last words were a plea to her brother to ensure her murderers hanged.

Six years ago, the woman had filed an FIR detailing how she had been raped at gunpoint by her then-fiancé Shivam Trivedi. The perpetrators remain at large. According to her FIR, Trivedi took her to a rented room in Raebareli, and held her captive for over a month. Trivedi and his cousin Shubham repeatedly raped her, filmed the act, and tried to blackmail her into silence.

Systematic Betrayals

The woman was the youngest of seven children in a lower-caste, poor family. While Trivedi, who lived in the same village, belonged to an influential, upper-caste Hindu family. She alleged that Trivedi had taken her to Raebareli saying they’d get married in a civil court.

On December 12, the accused arrived at her home and asked her to come with him to a nearby temple to get married. They raped her at gunpoint, states her FIR.

After she filed the FIR at in Raebareli’s Lalganj police station, the accused and his family relentlessly intimidated her and her family, telling her to withdraw the case. The woman refused. Trivedi was arrested in September 2019, but got bail in November. Her father has since said that his daughter would still be alive if only Trivedi hadn’t been granted bail.

Trivedi, along with his father Ram Kishore, Shubham, his uncle Harishankar, and a mutual friend Umesh Bajpai are accused of perpetrating the deadly attack which sent shockwaves across India. The case drew significant attention, with Priyanka Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav, Unnao MP Sakshi Maharaj, and BJP ministers Swami Prasad Maurya and Kamal Rani Varun visiting Unnao to express solidarity and demand action against the accused.

Charges related to gang rape were initially filed, but following the victim’s death, additional charges were added to the case, inter alia murder, causing grievous hurt, and criminal intimidation.

Despite Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister (CM) Yogi Adityanath’s promises of fast action and strict punishment for the perpetrators, justice remains elusive. In May 2022, Allahabad High Court granted bail to three accused—Umesh Kumar Bajpai, Ram Kishor Trivedi and Hari Shankar Trivedi, while Shubham Trivedi got bail in June.

In February 2023, the girl’s brother filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court, challenging the Allahabad High Court’s June 10 order granting bail to the accused in a sensitive case. While making his argument, the complainant alleged that the accused and their supporters had persistently been pressuring and threatening the victim’s family to settle the case. A division bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Rajesh Bindal accepted the petition.

Five years after her death, the family’s long-wait for justice continues.

One of Many

Even though the case resulted in rage among the Indian masses, with widespread protests and calls for actions, this was not the first time a gruesome rape from Unnao made national headlines.

In June 2017, then-BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar and his associates kidnapped and raped a 17-year-old girl. Despite her family’s complaints, the police initially ignored their pleas, and even arrested her father under the Arms Act. He died in custody.

The case gained national attention after the victim attempted to self-immolate in front of the CM’s residence. This was her desperate attempt to get the authorities to take swift action in her case. In April 2018, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over, leading to the arrest of Sengar and his accomplices.

On July 2, 2019, a long-standing case involving the victim’s uncle resurfaced; this resulted in a 10-year prison sentence. Later that month, a car crashed into the envoy carrying the victim and lead counsel to a court hearing. The victim’s aunts died in the accident.

Sengar was sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2019, and ordered to pay a fine.

Most Dangerous State for Women

According to the 2022 National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, UP saw the highest number of cases filed under crime against women which includes rape, cruelty by husband, domestic violence, kidnapping, sexual harassment. Between 2020 and 2022, the cases dramatically went up from 49, 385 to 65, 743. Of the total cases recorded in India UP accounted for 13.29 per cent in 2020 and 14.76 per cent in 2022.

Reportedly, Unnao police registered 86 rape cases and 185 cases of sexual harassment between January and November in 2019.

Recently, Unnao made headlines again when a government school teacher lured a minor Dalit girl from Saraiya village under the pretence of offering employment. Allegedly, the teacher took the girl to his Lucknow residence where he, and others, gang-raped and murdered.

Her family lived in a one-room dilapidated shack opposite the government school where the accused used to teach. They said they could never have imagined he was capable of doing something like this.

“He has been the headmaster of this school for about five years. One day he came to us and said he needed help babysitting his young child in Lucknow and asked us if he could take my sister. He offered to pay 6000 rupees,” the brother said.

Being a big family with a deceased father, money was hard to come by. The lucrative offer of Rs 6000 tempted them and they agreed to send the 14-year-old with him.

The family got suspicious when they called the teacher multiple times the following day and he refused to put her on the phone saying she was sick. When a few days passed and there was no word from her, the family got worried.

On the eighth day, July 16, 2024, a Lucknow-based hospital called the family to inform them that their youngest was dead.

“The teacher says she was sick and she died but we can’t believe that,” says the family.

The victim’s sister adds, “She (the victim) had dried blood all over her face and on the back of her head. There were marks of rope around her wrist and ankles. When the postmortem was done, it was found she had been gang-raped.”

The teacher and his accomplices were booked for child rape and under Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

(This appeared in the print as 'The Burning Woman')