Abha was born in the Tribal region in the most interior part of Northern India. From the day she was born, the only thing she and her mother prayed for were her safe survival. In her village, it was a normal routine for the male members of the family to openly rape any female members of the family. Punishment for women for every small mistake would be either in form of either physical or sexual abuse. But Abha had decided that she would not face this all her life. She was determined from her very young age that she would fight against the system. In a way she was luckier than her batch mates, for her parents supported her in educating her. Her father was a gentleman and wanted to see his daughter as one of the Government Officials. But life for girls in such villages cannot be as easy as it would have been in the city.
Her Relatives were always jealous about Abha and why wouldn’t they be for Abha was not only better than their sons she was also a lustrous beauty just as her name described. They would often doubt her chastity and make up all kinds of stories about Abha. Finally Abha’s and her father’s dream was about to be fulfilled. There was a scholarship exam that Abha had to give to seek admission in the best school in the nearby town. Abha’s father was really happy about it, he was proud and satisfied that his daughter will finally be away from all this dreadful village. Abha was about to leave for town in company of her parents and her favorite teacher and mentor Sharma Sir. Suddenly, Abha’s father fell ill and therefore her parents could not accompany her. Finally her parents decided to send her to town with their trusted Sharma Sir.
They decided to take the night bus to the town, so that they could reach there early morning for the exams. Abha went to the village Mata Temple and sought her blessings. Abha and Sharma Sir boarded the 7 pm bus from their village. It must have been some 30 minutes since the bus started and suddenly it came to halt. Some strong men covering their faces with the fire torch entered into the bus and were hurriedly hunting for someone. Seeing this Abha got scared and started praying. Suddenly, one of the hooligans pointed to Abha and said “There she is, spoiling the name of our community, going to the town for flesh trade with this pimp teacher of yours.” Another one shouted, “it is girls like her who spoil the name of our community.”
In a fraction of a second she and her teacher were dragged out of the bus. Sharma ji pleaded the hooligans not to do anything to Abha and try to fight them alone. He constantly kept on asking Abha to keep running without looking behind. But those hooligans were armed. In a few minutes Sharmaji was lying there in a pool of blood. Abha tried her level best to run faster but what happened next she also doesnt remember. Her screams shook the forest, but none came to her rescue. She was brutally raped by 7 men and killed.
On the Next day in the morning, the entire village was summoned near the Panchayat. They saw two bodies hanging on the banyan tree. Abha’s Father couldn’t believe that his little doll who had gone to give her exams was a victim of Honour Killing. Abha’s parents were ousted from the village because their daughter was travelling with a man of other caste to the city to give exams (Educating girls itself was a big crime in that village). Thus, in order to save the Honor of the Community and cleanse the community it was important for the Moral Brigade to kill the poor soul. Thus another murder in the name of Honor.
Men and Women co-exist in our society. It is next to impossible to determine who is superior and who is inferior. But one thing that we need to remember is , if we do not work together, without understanding each other, we cannot solve our own individual problems.
For the purpose of the same, I will be interviewing a few people online, who are a part of our society to share their view points and knowledge about Periods and PCOD. If you wish to be a part of this conversation, then please do email me at adv.aishwaryasandeep@gmail.com or send me a message on my facebook account .
Hereunder are a few people, who support this initiative.
Raaj Konar , Radha Ramnath, Gayatri Vamsi , Sandeep Radhakrishnan,
If you like this article then please do follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The copyright of this article belongs exclusively to Ms. Aishwarya Sandeep. Any reproduction of the same without permission will amount to Copyright Infringement. Appropriate Legal Action under the Indian Laws subject to Mumbai Jurisdiction will be initiated.
You May also like to read:-
Why we need to accept the prescence of drugs in our society?