The Tribune
Teenaged girl fights for survival
Was brutally attacked at a dhaba in Bhogpur
Deepkamal Kaur Tribune News Service Jalandhar, July 7
Fate could not have been more cruel to this 16-year-old girl of Sanora village in Bhogpur, who is in a coma following an assault on her by unidentified persons on Saturday night.
Riti, who is on ventilator at a private hospital here, is struggling between life and death, as no one from her family is around to attend to her even at this critical stage.
Riti, belonging to a Dalit family, was just two and a half years old when her parents parted way, leaving her with her grandparents at adjoining Karesian village in the city. Since her grandfather Sukhdev Singh (70) had suffered a paralytic attack a few years ago, she used to join her grandmother Joginder Kaur (68) at their roadside dhaba after attending her school to help them make two ends meet.
A class IX student in a government school, tough situations have always been part of the poor girl. But the Saturday night’s assault brought everything to a screeching halt. While Riti’s grandmother, who reportedly struggled hard to prevent her daughter being dragged away by the assailants, bled to death on the spot, she herself is unconscious since the day and cannot narrate as to what happened on the fateful night.
“The cops found a sacred pendant worn by Riti in the hands of my mother as she was spotted in a pool of blood after nearly 24 hours while Riti herself was missing. My father, too, lay helplessly at the rear side of the dhaba, giving out feeble screams for help for 24 hours. Being paralytic and visually impaired, he could neither identify the assailants nor even get up after the attack. He lay there unfed for 24 hours till someone went up to him and raised an alarm and sounded me too,” said Riti’s father, who works as a mason.
It was later that a police patrolling team spotted Riti lying in the fields about 2.5 km from the spot with a serious blunt injury on her head. The cops took her to Civil Hospital at Kala Bakra and then at Jalandhar, from where she was brought to a private hospital in the city where she underwent a surgery on Monday, but is yet to regain consciousness. As no one from her family is around, it is the nurses who are taking every care of her and feeding her nasally. Her swollen face, hands and feet tell the story of force used on her on the day.
Even as her grandfather is back home, he does not know at all as to how it all happened. “He did not even know that my mother had already died and my daughter had been taken away. All what he has told me is that the assailants broke the bulb. Since there was no light and he is already visually impaired, he could not catch even the slightest glimpse of the attackers. He does not even know whether there was just one attacker or four and as to how they had come. There have been no witnesses to the incident,” Riti’s father said sobbing.
Seemingly helpless, he said, “I have four children and my ailing father to take care of. All this while, I had been busy making arrangements for my mother’s last rites, which were performed today. I have not attended work for four days. If I do not go to work tomorrow, who will feed my family? In such a scenario, how can I sit in the hospital beside my daughter, who is not responding at all?”
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of “Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC”)
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of “Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC”)
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