Update 8: Thanks to all of you who, in various posts and comments, have defended me: in particular, this post by Gawker who points out Gaurav Sabnis’ vicious personal attack on me in the name of the dignity of the dead in contrast to his commendation of Aadisht Khanna’s abusive attack at a reader of How the Other Half Lives which certainly went against the dignity of a living person.
Update 7: My story. And do send an SMS for Surekha Bhotmange.
Update 6: My response to the issue of the photograph that is not anymore on this page.
Update 5: NDTV reported it last night but I wonder why the story does not mention that the massacre happened over a month ago?
Update 4: Here is a report (.pdf) by the Manuski Advocacy Centre and here is a post with a number of pictures and a lot of comments by Dalit activists from all over the world.
Update 3: Atrocity News has an interview with the doctor whose post-mortem report did not mention rape, and as a result the police is unable to include that as one of the charges in its investigation. It has been alleged that the doctor was under political pressure.
Update 2: Some of you have left comments asking that one of the photographs be removed. I have done so, but I don’t think I did any injustice to the dignity of the dead. I was doing justice to the dignity of truth. I will try to find time later in the day to explain this. Here is my explanation.
Update 1: Atrocity News says five more have been arrested, including two women, and names 3 people who still need to be arrested.
A little over a month ago, four members of a dalit family were massacred in Kherlanji, a village in district Bhandara, 120 kms away from Nagpur in Maharashtra. Here are two reports by Jaideep Hardikar in DNA, and a report in The Times of India yesterday. Here is the report of the fact-finding committee of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti;
A detailed report that I have written will appear later this week in Tehelka is here. Meanwhile, here are some photographs.
In the photos above, Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange shows his hut from where the four members of his family were dragged away to members Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti’s fact finding team, which included Kishore Tiwari, Manoj Upadhaya, Vinod Tiwari, Mohan Jadhav and Moreshwar Watile.
The incident was reported in the rural Vidarbha supplements of Marathi press, which gave it the version of the perpetrators, that the act was provoked by Surekha Bhotmange’s extramarital relationship with Siddharth Gajbhiye, which was not true.
Priyanka Bhotmange, 17, was a Class XII topper and wanted to get into the army. This mugshot would have made it to her enrolment form.
Roshan, 21, was blind, and Priyanka, 17, had just been bought a bicycle by her doting mother Surekha.
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disturbing, to say the least…
You are crossing all decent and humane lines of reporting by publishing Priyanka’s photo like that. Please take it down , she deserves atleast some respect in death.
theres a piece in desipundit about this that led me to your blog. just wanted to say i dont agree that the pictures ‘compromise dignity of the dead’ . If i were prinyanka, I would want my picture everywhere to incite wrath . This would dignify me in death.
dont take notice of comments which are not important.
It’s sad to witness that women are subjected to this kind of violence and brutality. And these deplorable acts, unfortunately, continue to exist even after their death (forced one!).
You manage to foment more rancor than sympathy.
Your fingers are well-manicured, well-educated yet obtrusive and your tone is very casual. And they have to be prosecuted aptly.
I deplore this. Is this right way to present images of the scars left on the victims by the criminals?
Do mourn the victims. Spread a wild-fire hunt for the criminals. Raise a voice for justice.
You have DEHUMANISED brutal an attack on women. Please do not CELEBRATE.
I am sure that you have a good understanding how the laws of sensitive hearts* work and influence a person of your stature……. *as demanded by the situation
Not parking any request. But protesting.
Jyotsna
This is freaky shit!
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Apurva: i know.
tgfi: done.
tara: i agree somewhat.
jyothsnay: you dissect in detail, but you are being unfair to me
Vulturo: yes
Shivam – Thank you for this. I mean posting on this issue with the photos. Putting up the photos was your choice as was removing one. I have no issues with either choice and I don’t need an explanation. Sometimes things have to be said. You did a great job.
Reply: Thanks
Shivam Vij
Ouch, it hurts! right?
I just dissected the content..u said I am being unfair!
…A verbal account of sexual humiliation and rape is capable of transforming into images so vivid that one requires no visceral portrayal of the victim’s sufferings and scars….
as an expert or an opinionated individual you need to know which ones to publish & which ones not to publish
I appreciate the fact that you took the initiative {which most of us would not even think of it amidst our rigmarolic existence), but you need to be aware where to draw a line…dnot ever ignore the humongous presence of voyeuristic minded and hedonists….anyways, I still prefer to be in the realm of “retaining the basic layer of individual dignity, whether or not she is alive”
publishing the photos isn’t the most sensitive thing to do, is it?
I was disturbed by these photos, and horrified by this story when I first read it some weeks ago. I think it is sad that what should be debated here — the horror of these murders — has been turned into a debate on whether the photos should have been published.
For the record, I think everyone should see these shots. Shivam I don’t think you should have removed one (not having seen this post before just now, I can still guess which one you removed).
Horrible things happen. Sometimes the only way to understand quite how horrible is to open our eyes and look.
I agree with Dilip. You should _not_ have taken that pic off. When we talk about censorship, it is not just government censorship that is wrong but also self-censorship (actively promoted by the Chinese governemnt) _and_ public censorship. By taking the picture yourselves, you commit a crime that you cry against. Sorry, this was not a good move, that is all.
The pictures were disturbing and it is possible that some necrophiliac/psychopath would get off seeing it but the vast majority of the people need to disturbed out of the their bourgeois existence. No other picture shows the barbarism of the people who committed this crime as that one image.
I think we are debating the wrong point here (whether or not the photos should have been published or not)…we should now focus on what can we do to ensure that justice is delivered (is that the correct term?) to these people.
Phew! Those pics are disturbing. But i wonder if freedom of expression lets us do that…nearly naked pics of a dead body!
I agree with Dilip and Apurva. You shouldn’t have taken the picture off. The picture spoke more about the issue than anything you have written.
Biju is right. We should focus on the atrocity than about the privacy issues.
This is a very powerful post and I am worried that some of the people is using the “privacy issues” to take out the personal vengeance on Shivam. Let us see if we can do something to get justice for that poor girl.
I dont understand why you are justifying what you have posted in your blog. At some point, maybe after the IIPM tamasha, the Indian blogsphere has been posting for others rather than themselves – the latter I think is the basic concept of blogging. You are not a “Forum” to be moderated upon to “suit” the thought process of your members. YOU are an indivdual writing in YOUR own blog expressing YOUR sentis. Censorship in Blogging ?
I’m sure you didn’t photoshop these photos, they are obviously available officially and have been featured in the MSM and a few online new sites. So why all this hue and cry against you? Maybe something as simple as better site hits ?
You removed a photo cos it hurt someone ? Boss, I think your Blogheader reminds me of coloured condoms, so will you pls remove it? watch out, you remove one more, Gaurav will quit his current job :-). Sadly, this Gaurav who made the limelight protesting against freedom of expression is the one who’s disgustingly wriiten about another’s blogger’s thought process.
Jyotsana talks about the “voyeuristic minded and hedonists”. You think a voyeur is gonna be spending time in your blog leering over these gruesome low-res pics when a Google of the word voyeur would probably fetch enough sites to keep one occupied for a lifetime ? Aw come one, J, its folks like you who actually play down the crime by prescribing where to “draw a line”. Whose line ? Maybe, the news shouldn’t have been reported at all, cos it could still hurt someone’s sentiments.
Shivam, if you are going to be blogging for others rather than yourself, lemme know…I’ll remove your RSS feed and save bandwidth.
I think the discussion about whether putting up / taking down the photographs were right or wrong is distracting us from the real issue: the essential horror of the crime. Brings to mind Rabi-Thakur’s “bicharer baNi nirabe nibhrite kNaade”
I don’t think there was any need for you to remove the photos. It is true that they were not the first things I needed to see in the morning , but removing them is not the answer.
You should simply have included a warning (in bold) right at the start of your post about the nature of photos and then put all the photos at the end. That way, people could just read the text and avoid the photos if they wanted to. Like others have said, this is your blog and it is for you to decide what the content is going to be. Warning people about content that is quite likely to offend them is about as far as one should probably go. Of course, absolute freedom of expression would mean not even putting a warning. But that is your call.
Just a Thot Process…
The photo of a naked girl running with the mushroom cloud in the background after US n-bombed Japan…..
You guys think we should start a campaign to get it banned cos it could hurt some sentiments ? Or cos some voyeur may be ogling at it ?
DP can be asked to make some nice buttons that can be flashed on “supporting” blogs.
Through your link I read the report of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti about the massacre of the dalit mother and her three children. Most gruesome of events! Main stream media carries nothing about this! Somebody told me India is booming, India is rocking. God, how much cut off we are from the reality around us. India is in fact caving in.
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How to tell story of the dead without offending the living
and more importantly retaining & respecting the dignity & privacy of the dead
just a learning from the past
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0119/p11s02-wogi.html
enrich the emotional experiential value around one’s grief!
now, let’s move onto the consructive phase of the discussion? how to step-up the fight to claim justice for the lost child woman?
Thanks from the UK for covering this terrile story, Shivam Vij. The blogging community worldwide will be proud of you!
However, having found the withdrawn photo (thanks to Google cache), I feel that the complainers should have been ignored.
After the suffering that poor girl endured, how much dignity do they imagine she still had left to lose?
As tara too accurately wrote earlier: “If i were prinyanka, I would want my picture everywhere to incite wrath . This would dignify me in death.”
I live in hope that the investigations bring to trial the cowardly, bigotted, murderous attackers (and those who hide them!) and that the full force of the law is brought down on them.
Keep at it, Shivam.
(And whoever found this to be a “celebration” of atrocities against women – please, people, stop smoking that stuff.)
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Somehow the posting of photographs has become a larger issue here. The photographs were essential, we need to see them to wake us up from our slumber. To realize the brutal nature of our society, to demand justice for the victim. I don’t think Shivam did anything wrong by uploading the photographs. Finally it is his personal choice.
Relevant messages on PUCL: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PUCL/message/2042
Reminds me of the incident of murder of a tibetan nun by chinese forces last month. The world reacted only when the video of the shooting was made public here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xqKbAqXA-A
Shivam,
I just went through the links in your updates. This news is horrible, and even worse is the newspaper distorting facts and blaming the victims. Such dastardly acts ..and it is pathetic that it did not get adequate coverage. Like the earlier commenter, I also never read about it in any of the dailies.
Hope some justice is done, if at all any possible. Thanks for following this, even if to open up our eyes to what goes on. It’s just sad. :(
p.s: the link in update 3 does not work.
Reply: Now it does.
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Are people being serious when they are criticizing the fact that those pictures have been posted here? Banning photos is an act of censorship. I heard similar accusations launched at the decision to publish photos of the tortured victims of Abu Graib. Why the hell not? They need to be shown, so that people know what is going on.
Thank you for bringing this to light. Much of the coverage on India in US, for example, is the trumpeting of the “India Shining” rhetoric. India is Shining, India is Shining, India is Shining ad nauseaum. Focusing on a slim minority of the population and thus giving the impression that India is somehow “progressing” en masse is completely inaccurate and imprecise. The media should be reporting stories like this (and publishing photos to give people a sense of the level of barbarism).
I didn’t see anything wrong in these photos unless it is opposed by the family members. posting the photos of the bomb blast and quake victims is different ( i dont encourage this).
when i visited your site yesterday, you clearly mentioned that the size of the image has been largely reduced beacuse you know that disturbs lot of us. people want you to remove the photos, beacuse out of sight out of scope. they just dont want to know what happens around them. they are not ready to accept the truth. they just dont know that removing the photo doe not erase the crime. anyway the name of the post is somewhat misleading of your intentions.
my strong feeling is that you should not have removed that image
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Dalit’s blood do not boil even after he/she sees blood of his/her brothers and sisters.Some respondents are talking about dignity in death.Dignity-bullshit.There is no dignity in dalit’s life,what to talk of in death.Hippocrats turn to morality to hide their insensitivities towards cold blooded murders.They are forgetting that dead dalits would not even be allowed to be creamated in public Shamshan.Mr.Vij, atleast is trying to bring out dalits from their hibernation and showing ugly face of hinduism.He is crying for justice and making deaf to hear.Dalits need corageous people like Vij.Thanks Vij.
The link to the doctor’s interview does not work. Probably has been removed.
Reply: Thanks for pointing this out, Emma. They had changed the link, and so have I.
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I cant help but agree with some, you shouldn’t have removed the photograph.
Sometimes even the so called sane-minded need a tight slap of reality check.
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You should definitely put the pictures back. Pictures have a tremendous power to make people think, bring them to action and maybe even change the course of the world. We all remember Kim Phuc and napalm and Vietnam, don’t we ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4517597.stm
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/special_reports/war_photos/history.html
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I cannot beleive that people are arguing about whether the photographs should be displayed publically or not. There is a debate going on about the dignity of the dead. If the people who care so much about the dignity of the dead, can guarantee that speedy justice is done, only then should they raise their voice about the dignity of the dead. It is shameful that we have to argue about this rather than form one voice and demand that the perpetrators of the crime be brought to justice.
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Such a inhuman deed commited by the so called upper castes cannot be condemned in most harsh words.Perhaps it does not need one …what is needed is prompt and definitive action by the administration.The people who did this must be brought to justice in any of the circumstances…come what may.The administration may like to sleep over this issue.But the people of depressed castes must unite to build up pressure ,anyhow to force the Government to act.
Let us learn from the Jessica Lal case.Let us all unite and agitate to ensure that the culprits are punished.
We must understand that no matter how powerful the adversary is he can brought down by a united effort…
I would request ALL the leaders of not only Schedule castes but also the schedule tribes to unite in this struggle.
The media which so enthusiastically covered the anti-reservation rallies by the students is surprisingly silent now.What happened to their reporters now????
Their silence and lack of interest in the issue speaks thousands of words about their loyalties and priorities.It smacks of double standards. SHAME ON YOU PEOPLE.
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khairlanji incident is barberic in india still its running.. publishing pic is right step let all cremy net peoplemay see the barberic act of so called cast hindues and think about this kishorr
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Great Job! I completely support you in posting these images. Let India know what has been done in the name of caste for centuries. Good point brought by Hrishikesh, Rediff.com which so aggressively followed the anti-reservation rallies did not have anything about this carnage! They had one page saying the victim had accepted a job offered by the govt after initially refusing it.
this is a shame on the name of humanity in the birthplace of lord buddha and mahavir and nanak. is it not efficient for anyone that they are human beings like anybody else. i think there should not be any idol of any god in this country because we have not learnt anything from them. we just read it but never follow it.and what a great role of the state here. if they cannot make them secure then they should resign
atleast if they have any shame left in them. i myself bow my head in shame in this” GREAT” country.
if there is so much fuss about JESSICA LAL or MATTO or KATARA then why there is such deep silence in this most gruesome incident. those cases
are the criminal cases committed by a person but here the whole village in the form of a mob is involved. who is the culprit here. society, state or cast or everyone.think….
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SHAME ON ALL OF US
Shame on us Indians!!!
can we please start something to bring the facts to the nation as a whole? or are happy and satisfied with courtroom drama of Jessica lal and Ms Mattoo?
anybody has any ideas to do something on the ground rather than just debate here and forget?
Lets do something please.
this incident is not only a shame for all but it is the right time to fight against evils who crushes the poor dalits.As JAGAJEEVANRAM said it time for all us to crush those who foregos rights for poor and underdeveloped dalits!
It is sad that this happens in the “booming economy” India. It is sadder that hypocrites read and condemn publishing the truth behind the garb of decency.
It is a fact: because of such “decent” people who believe in burying their collective heads in the sand that we do not ever get to see or talk about the brutal truths. And that is why butchers get a free hand to do what they please, as the righteous turn away.
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Yet another Atrocity Story
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1879805,000600030006.htm
Sicilian,
I read that link. I wish you would also highlight another link below the story you wanted us to read!
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1884292,000600030006.htm
That would have put some things in balance, would it not?
Or maybe you did not want the balance in the first place!
Hang those people till death is right justice
Arun,
Thanks for the link. But I should unfortuntalely say that you are equating or balancing two relatively different issues. Although I appreciate the intention of people who are making dalit priests, but its my opinion its their own view of dalit upliftment, which I disagree. The real issue is mental agony which is caused by incidents on the dalits and this has been happening for centuries hampering the development. By the way, the kherlanji incident or the incident above is not the first of its kind. Since a child of 5 , I have been hearing such incidents from nearby villages and town, its only now that some , very few, people are bringing it out in the open, otherwise it was a part of day to day life (I personally contribute it to the fact to all the upper castes irrespective of their political affliations to keep India’s dirty little secret, a secret from the world). So although the “lifting up” of dalit to the position of priest would intentionally be good its like saying lifting dalit up from position they had 5000 years back to a position some upper caste held 2000 years back!
its pathetic & barbaric to its height.
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This is sad, a black spot on the image of growing india.