Ajaypur Assault: While Video Sparks Outrage, Victim's Character Is Still on Trial

For the past week, Ajaypur village in Bihar’s Nalanda district has remained in the headlines. The narrow lanes of the village, usually quiet, have seen an unusual surge in four-wheeled vehicles carrying police officials, administrators, politicians, activists, and journalists. They have been arriving one after another to investigate an incident that unfolded on the evening of March 26, when a woman from the village was dragged through the streets by a mob and allegedly subjected to an attempted rape.

 A video of the incident, now widely shared on social media, shows several men holding the woman as she struggles to free herself. Some repeatedly grab her private parts while she cries and pushes their hands away. Around them walks a crowd, shouting abuses at her as she is forced along the road.

Noorsarai police station was informed the same day. But the FIR was filed only the next day. Arrests began on March 28. According to the police, 13 people have been identified so far—three named in the FIR and ten others added later. Among those arrested is also a woman, accused of provoking the crowd.

Initially, the case was registered under charges related to molestation. Later, after the video circulated widely, police added sections related to an attempt to rape. The case is now being investigated under Sections 74, 75 and 76 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. An SIT formed in the matter says a chargesheet may be filed within a week.

But in Ajaypur, even several days after the incident, the conversation in the village has taken a different direction. Instead of focusing on the men who dragged and assaulted the woman, many residents are discussing the victim’s character.

Some of the sharpest comments are coming from women in the village themselves.

On the evening of April 2, a group of women sat talking a short distance from the survivor’s house. One of them compared the incident to “a rotten tomato spoiling the whole basket.” In her telling, the village’s reputation was damaged not by what the men did on the road that evening, but by allegations that the woman had an “illicit relationship”.

Amid these voices, 20-year-old Mausam Kumari is asking a different question: why is the woman not getting justice?

Mausam’s father, Maltu Mahto, is one of the three named accused arrested by the police.

 She says her father had gone there to intervene. “Villagers were saying that a man and a woman had been locked inside a room,” she said. “The woman tried to escape through the window, but people caught her and beat her. After that, some men started behaving very badly with her. My father went there to protect her. He even called the DSP and then the station in-charge. Within 10 to 15 minutes, the police arrived. Even in front of them, the men continued their behaviour. Now my father has been arrested. If tomorrow something like this happens again, who will step forward to help? I want justice for that woman and for my father.”

Police officials say the arrests were made only after carefully examining the video footage.

The woman at the centre of the case has said she had gone to recharge her phone that evening when villagers locked her inside a room, dragged her out and beat her. She has said that those who tried to assault her also attempted to rape her. Responding to allegations about her character, she said whether she was right or wrong was for her husband to decide—not the village.

When an Outlook team visited her house on April 2, she was not there. Four to five police personnel, including a sub-inspector, were stationed outside. When asked where she was, officers gave different answers. Some said she had left the village. Others said she had gone to relatives.

When the team returned the next day, she was still not home. Her husband, however, was there.

Amresh (name changed), who works as a daily-wage labourer in Maharashtra, returned to the village as soon as he heard about the incident. He now says he will not go back to work.

“How does talking to someone or going somewhere with someone become proof of an illicit relationship?” he said. “And even if my wife had done something wrong, that is between her and me. How does that give anyone the right to touch her like this?” He said he only wants that what happened to his wife should not happen to any other woman.

The incident comes at a time when several cases of violence against women have been reported across Bihar in recent months. The case involving the death of a NEET aspirant in Patna had already shaken the state. Since then, reports of harassment, abduction and sexual assault have continued to surface from different districts.

Several opposition leaders compared the Ajaypur video with the May 2023 incident in Manipur, where women were stripped and paraded publicly. Ministers in the state government also reacted, promising action.

Rampari, associated with the All India Democratic Women’s Association, said the incident reflected a worrying pattern.

“This reminds us of Manipur,” she said. “Such incidents are increasing in Bihar. The NEET student case in Patna is still unresolved despite SIT and CBI investigations. Since then, many more cases have taken place. In Ajaypur too, arrests happened only after the video went viral.”

When Purnea MP Pappu Yadav visited the village and spoke to the media demanding strict punishment, some villagers continued to question the woman’s character even in front of him.

“Society has become numb,” he said. “People record such incidents instead of stopping them. Some stand and watch. What can you expect in such a situation?” He also said people now look for caste and religion in every crime, and that the same was happening in Ajaypur.

Local journalist Akash Raj believes caste shaped what happened that evening. “There are only four or five houses from the survivor’s community in the village,” he said. “She belongs to an extremely backward caste. That made it easier for people to interfere in her life and publicly humiliate her. Social position matters. If she had belonged to an influential family, people would have thought twice.”

He added that while many villagers privately admit what happened to the woman was wrong, very few are willing to say openly that those involved acted out of a punitive mindset in the name of instant justice.

Official data reflects a broader pattern. NCRB figures show reported rape cases in Bihar rising from 651 in 2018 to 881 in 2022, with fluctuations in between. Union home ministry data shows that between 2019 and 2021, more than 51,000 cases of sexual violence against women were recorded in the state. During the same period, over 22,000 girls went missing, including more than 8,000 minors. The Bihar State Women’s Commission says nearly 6,000 cases are currently pending before it.

In Ajaypur today, the police investigation continues, and politicians keep arriving. But inside the village, another process is unfolding quietly, one in which the burden of explanation still falls on the woman, even after the video of what happened to her is there for everyone to see. Until that changes, justice here will remain only partial.