It is the third day in a row when Ravindar and his elder brother Krishna couldn’t get work on Wednesday. The two sons of Sohanlal Valmiki, the attacker of Aruna Shanbaug, were the only source of income for the family after he was fired from his job as a contract labourer at the National Thermal Power Corporation Plant in Hapur district of Uttar Pradesh on Monday.
Sohanlal’s family is struggling to make ends meet since the time he was identified and traced as the person who brutally assaulted and allegedly raped Shanbaug, the former nurse of KEM Hospital in Mumbai.
“We are extremely poor people. How are we supposed to eat? Will you give us food?” screamed Sushma, Krishna’s wife when this correspondent asked her about Sohanlal’s whereabouts. She said Sohanlal left with his relatives to see a doctor in the morning.
“With all the male members of the family not getting any work, the going has become tough for us, especially since the time you people started media trial of my father-in-law all over again,” she complained.
Angry mood in village Sohanlal’s family is one of the six Dalit families living in a village which is dominated by Thakurs. Since the time Sohanlal and consequently Parpa village hit the headlines, the villagers seemed pretty annoyed at what they termed the “media” trial of the family.
“All of us have not been able to come out of the shock and trauma. My father doesn’t speak much. He has stopped eating. I am afraid for his life because he is a heart patient and this episode coming back again in his life, has affected him very badly,” added Ravindar, who couldn’t get any formal education.
Ravindar alleged that his father was “unnecessarily” being haunted by the media when legally there was no case against him now.
