September 2024. The monsoon retreats from the tribal districts of northern Maharashtra, leaving behind the annual question of survival. For tribal communities in Nandurbar, the answer has long been the same: migrate south to the sugarcane fields of western Maharashtra. A migration that is often also a reminder of a predatory ecosystem.
Consider the case of Geeta* and Ujjawala*, who were allegedly harassed, raped and held captive by their contractors – locally called mukadam – and had to struggle for around three weeks to get an FIR lodged.
This was despite multiple trips to the Supa police station in Baramati, where the incident allegedly took place. It was a zero FIR that was eventually lodged – only on Tuesday at Dhadgaon police station in Nandurbar. The FIR came only after Geeta, Ujjawala, and 114 other sugarcane cutters were rescued from debt bondage work.
Baramati is not just any constituency. It’s the Lok Sabha seat of NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule and the assembly constituency of Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar.
Newslaundry has copies of three police complaints, as well as a copy of the zero FIR. Here’s how it all began.
The downward spiral
When Somnath Dhangekar, a contractor from Phaltan in Satara district, arrived in Geeta and Ujjawala’s village in September, he brought with him the promise of steady work at a sugarcane factory and advance payments. He sought 110 couples through a local intermediary – the husband of one of our survivors – and distributed Rs 51 lakh as advance payment.
Only 58 couples – 116 workers – made the journey to Phaltan. The absence of the others would become the pretext for what followed.
According to the complaint by one of the victims on March 11 at the Dhadgaon police station, the contractor was enraged when only 116 people arrived for work. He began to harass and mistreat the workers. Two months before the sugarcane harvesting season was supposed to end, the mobile phones of workers were confiscated, according to the complaint.
The victims alleged in the complaint that the employer, accompanied by his associates, would regularly visit their huts, assault workers over trivial matters, and sexually harass the women.
On the night of February 19, around 11 pm, Dhangekar arrived at the makeshift settlement where the workers were housed in Baramati’s Kutulwaadi. He told Geeta, Ujjawala, and their husbands they needed to go to another location for work.
The four got into his vehicle. But instead of taking them to a work site, he drove them to a dhaba where, according to the victims’ statements, he forced them to consume alcohol. They said he grew increasingly aggressive as he berated them about the missing workers. Dhangekar allegedly physically assaulted all four workers before stopping near a police vehicle.
Hoping for help, one of the women got down from Dhangekar’s vehicle and approached the police vehicle, according to the FIR. A policeman then accompanied them back to the labour camp in Dhangekar’s vehicle and left.
The victims said Dhangekar then called his associate, Santosh Karse. Together, they allegedly assaulted one victim’s husband before forcing her into a nearby hut, where she was held for nearly an hour and sexually assaulted. Both contractors allegedly raped both the women that night, according to the complaint.
The following morning, the women walked seven kilometres to Supa police station in Baramati. But the police allegedly dismissed their concerns.
‘Official inaction’ as abuse continues
Four days after the alleged rape, on February 23, the two women submitted a written complaint at Supa police station. But the police handed them over to Dhangekar, they alleged. The workers got back to work.
As the season came to an end, they tried to return home, but Dhangekar detained them, according to the FIR . He claimed they needed to work off the advance payments made to those who hadn’t shown up – a textbook case of debt bondage prohibited under India’s Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1976.
Dhangekar divided the workers, sending 92 to Najare village in Purandar and the rest to Somantri village in Phaltan, as per the complaint submitted by the victim at Dhadgaon police station.
On February 28, a group of these workers reached out to Sai Singh Valvi, a fellow villager who submitted a written complaint the same day at the Nandurbar SP’s office. The villager also circulated his complaint on social media after which he was contacted by Nandurbar-based social activist Vijay Valvi.
Activist Valvi said he then contacted Paschim Bharat Majdur Adhikar Manch, a network of trade unions and grassroots organisations advocating for agricultural workers, who managed to intervene and rescue the captives from the two locations on March 3 and March 7.
Valvi said, “I first learned about the incident from some villagers who had approached the office of the Nandurbar SP, urging action to be taken. When I discovered that they hadn’t received any assistance, I reached out to the Paschim Bharat Mazdoor Adhikar Manch, which stepped in to help rescue the workers.”
He continued: “After their rescue, the women wanted to file a complaint regarding the sexual assault…However, at Dhadgaon also they had to struggle and wait for 36 hours to register the FIR. On March 10, they went to the police station with their complaint, only to be told to return the following day. When they arrived the next day at 11 am, they were again told to come back in the evening…The FIR was finally registered late that night.”
The FIR was lodged under BNS sections 64(1), 115(2), 118(1), 351 and 3(5).
“They used to assault and mistreat us. But the police didn't even acknowledge our complaint,” one of the victims, on whose complaint the zero FIR was lodged, told Newslaundry. The other victim could not be reached for comment.
Sudheer Katiyar, an activist from the Paschim Bharat Mazdoor Adhikar Manch who coordinated the rescue effort, said, “Similar incidents have been happening involving tribal workers from north Maharashtra’s tribal areas who go for sugarcane harvesting work in western Maharashtra. Most unfortunate is that the police don’t take appropriate action in such matters because they know that the migrant sugarcane cutters can’t do much.”
Cops say ‘no complaint’
This is not the first such instance of sexual abuse of workers in Maharashtra’s sugar belt. Newslaundry had detailed the inhuman working conditions for these women workers and why many migrate to work as sugar cutters.
Meanwhile, asked about the lack of action at Supa police station, Pune Rural SP Pankaj Deshmukh told Newslaundry that the complainant “didn’t have a complaint”. “The complainant came to Supa police station but at that point of time she didn’t have a complaint against anybody and we wrote down a videographed statement.”
Asked if he could share this “statement” and whether the police looked into the reason why the women were at the Supa police station, he said, “We cannot share the written statement as now it’s a matter of investigation. We will be in position to tell only after further inquiry on what exact reasons she was in the police station for. Because till then the complainant didn’t have any complaint against anybody.”
About the alleged delay at Dhadgaon police station in Nandurbar, Nandurbar SP Shravan Dutt said, “I was not aware of it. Let me look into the matter.”
After Newslaundry reached out to the deputy CM’s office, we received a call from Baramati SDPO Sudarshan Rathore. “The complainants had not informed the police of such an incident when they came…But now an FIR has been filed at Nandurbar. We have also made up three to four teams and soon we will arrest the accused,” he said.
NCP Baramati MP Supriya Sule said, “I will intervene. It’s my duty and I will make sure that families get justice.”
*Names changed to protect identity
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