Deepender Deswal/TNN
 
Bhiwani, Nov 11: As Kaluvas, a village just three km from Bhiwani in Haryana, celebrated Diwali, the festive smiles amid the din of firecrackers and ritual exchange of sweets may just have hidden a horror no one has till now either dared or wanted to speak about.

Almost 13 days after the incident, it now transpires that Rajender Shivran, who claims he couldn’t sleep under the weight of the unspeakable crime, had on November 1 given a written complaint to the Bhiwani SP’s office saying two teenaged girls of the Dhanak community were ‘‘attacked by machetes and axes and stones as soon as they got down from a car on Diwali night (October 28).

The villagers had waited for them after getting wind of their movements. They were unconscious, but alive, when some of the men brought out jars of kerosene and set them on fire.’’

The complaint, a copy of which TOI has retrieved, was quite shockingly dismissed by the police who have not acted on it even two weeks after the girls were butchered and burned. More surprisingly, Bhiwani superintendent of police Sanjay Kumer said he hadn’t received any ‘‘written or verbal complaint’’ though Shivran went with his petition right to the SP office.

Shivran, who had sent copies of the complaint to the National Human Rights Commission and the National Commission for Women, DIG and DGP of Haryana, goes on to say in his chilling report that the two girls, whose fathers have been named, were waiting for them to come back after they went to some boys’ house to wish them on Diwali. The enraged family members even chased the car that dropped them home but couldn’t lay their hands on it.

‘‘The girls were alive when someone started pouring kerosene over their bodies. They were then dumped in the cremation ground,’’ the complaint goes on to say. ‘‘Everyone knows about it but is keeping quiet as most are in it together and those who dare to speak about it have been threatened with dire consequences.’’

Sources told TOI that though the Bhiwani police had received the complaint on the same day it was filed and even marked it for verification of facts with a rider to ‘‘report within three days’’, no attempt was made to investigate or even visit Kaluvas. Sanjay Kumar, however, said he has marked an inquiry into the allegations and police teams have been sent to Kaluvas to check out the facts.

But Kaluvas, the village India came to know after local boy Vijender Singh won a boxing bronze in Beijing, is keeping mum about what exactly happened that Diwali night.