Jigyasa Mishra

Reporting and Cover Illustration

Pallavi Prasad

Editor

Anubha Bhonsle

Series Editor

large_01-IMG_2572-JM-They_would_keep_me_barefoot.jpg

medium_01-IMG_2572-JM-They_would_keep_me_barefoot.jpg

small_01-IMG_2572-JM-They_would_keep_me_barefoot.jpg

thumbnail_01-IMG_2572-JM-They_would_keep_me_barefoot.jpg

01-IMG_2572-JM-They_would_keep_me_barefoot.jpg

Kajri, 7, was playing with her
three-year-old cousin in the backyard of her rented house in Lucknow, Uttar
Pradesh when she was kidnapped by two men.



Ten years later, in December 2020,
another cousin — a bank agent — was visiting a house in the city for work when he
noticed a girl who looked like Kajri, mopping the floor. He asked her what her
father’s name was but a woman interrupted the conversation and didn’t let them
talk. He left the house and called Lucknow’s One-stop Centre, set up by the
Ministry of Women and Child Development to support women and girls affected by
violence. Within hours, a police team from the police station in Mohanlalganj and the One-stop Centre, raided the house, rescued Kajri, and
handed over her custody to her family. 



Now 21, Kajri is living with psychiatric
disability, her front lower teeth are missing and she has faint recollections
of the 10 years she spent as a victim of trafficking, sexual assault, and child
labour.

“Earlier I was just sad, now I am completely disappointed and
hopeless,” Dhirendra Singh, Kajri’s 56-year-old father, says. He works as a
security guard at a private college in Lucknow and lives in a rented house. His
wife and two daughters, including Kajri, live in a house they own in Uttar
Pradesh’s Hardoi district. 



“I have worked as a security guard at different companies or
colleges in Lucknow for around 15 years. But since 2021, it’s been difficult to
continue my job in one place because I need days off to take Kajri to give police
statements, tests etc. I get fired when I ask for frequent leave. Then, I need
to look for a new job again,” Dhirendra says.



Dhirendra earns Rs. 9,000 a month which
is not sufficient for the family’s expenses. “I can’t bring Kajri to Lucknow
again and again, risking her safety and spending the little I earn on travel,
when nothing is being done.”



His efforts for justice have amounted to
little in the three and a half years since Kajri was found. Even after several
trips to the legal aid office, the police station in Mohanlalganj, and the
district court in Kaiserbagh, Lucknow, Kajri’s statement has not been recorded
before a magistrate as per Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, because
“the court asks for police FIR from 2020” when Kajri was rescued, Dhirendra
explains. 



The only FIR Dhirendra has filed was in
December 2010 with kidnapping charges under <a href="https://indiankanoon.org/doc/619940/">Sections 363 </a>and
<a href="https://indiankanoon.org/doc/695990/">364</a>
of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), two days after Kajri went missing. It’s a
tattered, fading handwritten document. Not much is legible 14 years later. The
police don&#39;t have a copy —digital or physical— of this 2010 FIR which they say
is needed in order to file a follow up FIR with facts that surfaced after
Kajri’s rescue in 2020. 



In other words, the ‘2020 FIR’ the court needs
does not exist and so Kajri’s case is not even in the judicial system.

“As soon as Kajri was rescued, an FIR
should have been lodged against the woman in whose house she was found.  The FIR which was lodged when she went missing
in 2010 only included charges of kidnapping. But when she was rescued it was
important to lodge an FIR with more serious IPC sections making up the offence
of <a href="https://www.mha.gov.in/sites/default/files/2022-12/combatinghumantrafficking_29092022%5B1%5D.pdf">trafficking</a> and <a href="https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/2079/1/AA2012-32.pdf">sexual assault</a>,” Apoorva Srivastav, an independent Lucknow-based advocate with
knowledge of the case. “Kajri&#39;s statement should have been recorded at the
earliest with the police and the Magistrate, the latter of which is pending
till date.”



In the 48 hours after Kajri was rescued,
her statement was taken at Mohanlalganj police station under Section 161 of the
CrPC. She was also medically examined at two hospitals in Lucknow. The first
hospital noted a scar on Kajri’s abdomen, some missing lower jaw teeth, and a
darkened area on her right breast. The second hospital referred her to the
psychiatry department.



A 2021 report from the hospital
concludes that Kajri has “mild mental retardation” with an IQ of 50-55,
indicating “50 per cent disability.” After the diagnosis Kajri was admitted in
the hospital for seven days and received counselling and treatment for her
mental illness. “That is inadequate rehabilitation for a case involving
prolonged sexual assault and trafficking. Continued psychiatric treatment and
psychological counselling is essential to bring the survivor out of the trauma,
guilt, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s also important to
ensure societal integration in order to combat exclusion and stigmatisation,”
Srivastav says.



In the absence of adequate psycho-social support
and a timely FIR, the details of Kajri’s life between 2010 and 2020 are hazy,
and fragment further as time passes.

“Two people took me and tied my mouth.
They took me to Chinhat in a bus,” Kajri says in a mix of Bhojpuri and Hindi,
recalling the December 2010 morning she was kidnapped. Chinhat is a block in
Lucknow where Kajri was rescued from; Bhojpuri is the language that was spoken
in the house where she was held captive. She often repeats &#39;nange god rakhte the‘ which translates to ‘they would keep me barefoot’. 



As to the inhabitants of the first-floor
house, Kajri remembers three people, including a woman named Rekha. She also
recalls several tenants who lived in rented rooms on the ground floor. 



“I was given two rotis, twice a
day. More than that was not allowed. I was always kept barefoot. They would
never give me a blanket or sheet even in the winters. All I was given was torn,
old clothes…When I would get maheena [menstruate],
Rekha would give me dirty clothes. Sometimes she would tell me to use the pochha [mop],” Kajri says.



She remembers doing household chores
like sweeping, mopping, cooking, cleaning toilets and washing clothes, always under
the shadow and threat of violence. Once, Rekha allegedly punched Kajri in the
face for a meal that didn’t taste good to her. That broke her lower front
teeth.



“When I was not menstruating, she would
take me to a room,” Kajri adds, staring at the floor. A man who lived in the
house would “close the room from inside, undress me, lay upon me and do what he
wanted to. I would try and stop him but he would force himself on me and also then
call his tenants to do the same. They would make me lie down between them.”

Dhirendra adds that when she was first
rescued, Kajri had alleged that “Rekha took money from the tenants for getting
household chores done by her, and raping her repeatedly.”



The father is drained. “We have been
running since January 2021,” he says. The ‘we’ here does not include steady
legal help. Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives Trust (AALI), a
Lucknow-based nonprofit legal aid organisation which takes up pro-bono cases of
violence against women had reached out to him through the One-stop Centre in 2020. Since then, Kajri’s
case has changed at least four lawyers.



The current lawyer from AALI sent
Dhirendra a draft of a new complaint based on which a FIR could be filed. When the
father pointed out some factual errors, the lawyer rebuked him, leading to an impasse.
Dhirendra has not signed the draft, and the lawyer has not sent a revised one.



“When a phone gets lost, they turn the world
upside down but here my daughter was trafficked and enslaved for 10 years and
nothing has been done,” Dhirendra says. A large, carefully preserved pile of
documents, envelopes and photos—every piece of information he has collected for
Kajri’s case since 2010 lies in a locker of his iron cupboard, testament to his
resolve to persevere. The story is part of a nationwide reporting project focusing on social, institutional and structural barriers to care for survivors of Sexual and Gender-Based violence (SGBV) in India. It is part of a Doctors Without Borders India supported initiative. The names of the survivors and family members have been changed to protect their identity .

‘They would keep me barefoot’

’وہ مجھے ہر وقت ننگے پیر رکھتے تھے‘

‘వాళ్ళెప్పుడూ నన్ను దిసపాదాలతోనే ఉంచారు'

‘என்னை வெறுங்காலில் வைத்திருந்தார்கள்’

'ਉਹ ਮੈਨੂੰ ਨੰਗੇ ਪੈਰੀਂ ਰੱਖਦੇ'

‘ସେମାନେ ମୋତେ ଖାଲି ପାଦରେ ରଖୁଥିଲେ’

‘അവരെന്നെ ചെരുപ്പില്ലാതെ നിർത്തി’

'ಅವರು ಕೆಲವೊಮ್ಮೆ ನನ್ನನ್ನು ಬರಿಗಾಲಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಬಿಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು'

‘તેઓ મને ઉઘાડા પગે રાખતાં’

‘वो मन मोला जुच्छा गोड़ राखत रहिन’

‘उ लोग हमरा खालिए गोड़ राखत रहे’

‘ওরা আমায় খালি পায়ে রাখত’

‘সিহঁতে মোক উদং ভৰিৰে ৰাখিছিল’

'वे मुझे हर वक़्त नंगे पैर रखते थे'

 Lucknow

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

‘They would keep me barefoot’

Trafficking victim Kajri pieces together the last 10 years of her life. Her father seeks help from lawyers, the police and courts, but no one is listening

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit