Bhaiyyalal, Surekha’s husband, was the only one to survive. “I was in the field when I heard people shout. When I rushed to my hut, I saw some 50-60 people attacking my family.”

Realising he couldn’t take on the mob, Bhaiyyalal fled, seeking shelter with relatives in nearby Warthi. “The local police should have gauged the seriousness of the development that led to the incident and acted to prevent it. They are at fault,” says a police officer.

Bhaiyyalal says a Gond tribal had once warned him that they would be “finished”.

“I never thought they would carry out the threat’’. Dilip Uke, Dalit activist and member of the Panchayat Samiti at the tehsil headquarters in Mohadi, maintains: “They didn’t like the fact that the Bhotmanges were being assertive about their rights. Just see how brutally were they killed.”

Bhaiyyalal says he now realises it was a mistake moving to Khairlanji. “We thought we could mingle with the upper castes in the village, but they always made us feel that we were not their equal. If we had a function, they wouldn’t eat at our place,” he says.