Madinaben doesn’t know if she can call it justice. It took one month for the police to arrest the man she claims raped her 16-year-old daughter before killing her and six more members of her family before her eyes, and then setting their bodies afire.The BJP’s Kalol unit president, Chandrasinh Parmar, lived just 100 m from their home in Aeral village and had been roaming freely till the National Human Rights Commission got the police to register an FIR alleging rape.On Thursday, the police arrested Parmar on charges of murder and rape. He is accused of the murder of seven people, all residents of Aeral village. A former sarpanch, Parmar has now been sent to Godhra sub-jail. The minority community said it had received threats following his arrest.Recalling the massacre of March 2, Madinaben says: ‘‘I survived because I hid in the fields, gagging my five-year-old son. They raped my young daughter and then killed her.’’ Her in-laws Ismailbhai and Uriben; sister-in-law Rukaiyaben; husband Adam and their daughter Sohana, 17; and Tajuben, 25, were also killed.The family had earlier shifted to a field for safety when they sensed tension building up in the village. Madina said the incident occurred at noon on March 2 when someone tipped off the mob that they were hiding in fields.Armed with kerosene and petrol, the mob later set six bodies on fire at one spot and the seventh about 25 feet away. Madina and a few others hiding in nearby fields were rescued by the Army. But her horrors didn’t end. Her mother, brother and niece were killed in a separate incident in Delol village, not far from Aeral.Though there were separate complaints — copies of which are available with The Indian Express — about the Aeral violence, there is no mention of rape. Madina alleged she had told the police about the rapes but the charges were included when the NHRC interviewed her at the Kalol camp.Still, all the accused named by Madina in her FIR are roaming scot-free and no attempt had been made to nab them, minority community members who returned to the village alleged.
