On the morning of October 29, Asha and Suraj (names changed to protect privacy) left for the atta chakki (flour mill) they worked at, about 100 metres from their home in Pataura village, Banda district, Uttar Pradesh. The couple, both Dalits, had taken up a job to plaster the mill’s walls with cow dung. Their oldest daughter, Rashmi (name changed), was getting married and they were trying to supplement their income. “We needed some money to buy a lehenga and saris for our daughter. We did not have jewellery, and we wanted her to have a better life,” Suraj says. They were promised ₹300 a day, the same rate they were paid for working as farmhands.
Suraj, 43, and Asha, 40, had left the mill for home around 12.30 p.m., for lunch. Their daughter had dal-roti ready for them, knowing that her father had to leave quickly for work in Naraini, about 20 km away. Bauwa Shukla, one of the owners of the chakki, allegedly called Asha on the mobile phone between 2 p.m. and 2.30 p.m., and asked her to complete some more plastering work. “Hurriedly, my mother left, she hadn’t even eaten properly,” Rashmi says. The couple had worked there for just two days.
On the same day, in the late afternoon, Asha’s dismembered body was found in the mill’s main structure by a relative, with her sari, petticoat, and blouse strewn around. The Banda police from the Girwan station, about 10 km away, reached the spot at 4 p.m., says the Superintendent of Police, Ankur Agarwal. He adds that they took the body for a post-mortem.
Before the post-mortem results came in, the Banda police, via a video message from Agarwal on November 2, declared through their social media handle on X that the initial investigation showed a case of accidental death, where the woman’s body got entangled between the machine and its belt. The woman did not sustain any injuries in her private parts, it claimed. The post-mortem report came out on November 21.
This story was originally published in thehindu.com. Read the full story here .