Disbelief in Bihar Village of Man Accused in the Delhi Rape Case

Prashant Ravi/Biharphoto Delhi gang rape accused Akshaya Thakur's native village, Lahangkarma, in Aurangabad district, Bihar.

AURANGABAD, Bihar - The family of Akshay Thakur, one of the six men accused in the Delhi gang rape case, first learned about the incident and the nationwide protests it has inspired when local police officers came to their house looking for him.

The family owns a television set, but cannot watch it because there is no electricity in the area. Newspapers don't reach this far.

Their village of Lahangkarma is in the northeastern state of Bihar, on the remote, dusty plains that stra ddle the border with Jharkhand state. An anti-government insurgency movement, known as Maoists, is active in the area, and attacked the local police station in December 2011.

Family members said they can't believe that Mr. Thakur, 24, a high school dropout, could have committed the crime. He has admitted to both family and the police that on Dec. 16 he was on the bus where a young woman was gang-raped and fatally beaten, but not confessed to anything more to them. Police identified him Dec. 18 as the “helper” of Ram Singh, the bus driver.

Prashant Ravi/Biharphoto Punita Devi, wife of Delhi gang rape accused, Akshay Thakur, with their son Priyaunshu Kumar, in Lahangkarma village in Bihar.

“He loves me very much and I'll not believe anyone that he is involved in such a dirty thing,” his wife, Punita Devi, said in an interview in the village. Ms. Devi, who married Mr. Thakur in 2010, held their crying year-and-a-half-old son in her arms as she spoke. She did not say how old she was, but appeared younger than the marriageable age of 18.

“We were loving to each other,” she said. “He used to talk to me on the phone whenever he left” the village, she added. Looking distraught and anxious, she spoke loudly and nervously, insisting on his innocence.

In the aftermath of the Delhi rape, debate is raging in India about what might have prompted a group of men to commit such a violent crime against a young woman. The woman, a 23-year old physiotherapy student, was raped several times and attacked with an iron rod, injuring her internal organs so severely that portions of her intestines had to be removed.

India, and particularly north India, has seen a rise in reported gang rapes in recent months, adding fuel to the debate.

On Sunday, Raj Thackery, head of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, a right-wing political party, blamed the crime on migrants from Bihar.

“All are talking about the Delhi gang-rape, but no one is asking who did this. Nobody's asking from where these men came,” he said, according to The Hindu newspaper. “Nobody is mentioning the fact that all these rapists are from Bihar,” he said.

The Bihar police say they are unaware that any of the other men accused in the Delhi rape are from the state. The hometowns of most of the rest of the men have not been made public by the police.

Five of the men accused in case, including Mr. Thakur, have been charged with murder, attempted murder, gang rape and robbery. They have also been charged under section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, which holds each accused individual equally liable for all criminal acts committed together as a group.

According to the police, Mr. Thakur fled Delhi after the rape, traveling first to Jaipur, then making his way by train to his home village. His father, Saryug Singh, a farmer, said he turned his son over to the police. (The surname Singh is often rendered as Thakur is Delhi.)

Biharphoto/Prashant Ravi Saryug Singh, father of Delhi gang rape case accused Akshay Thakur in Lahangkarma village, Bihar.

“I personally h anded Akshay over to the police and told them if he is guilty he must be punished,” Mr. Singh said, while wiping tears from his eyes. “What more could I do? I don't know what will happen and I'm not capable of doing anything more.”

Ms. Devi said she knew that her husband was working as a bus conductor in Delhi. “He had told me over phone he was working on a bus in Delhi for the last two months,” she said. Mr. Thakur had last visited his village six months ago, she said, before returning on Dec. 21.

“When he came here he told me that such an incident had happened and, though he was there in the bus along with others, he had not done anything wrong,” she said.

There is little sign of economic development in the village, and many of its young men migrate to cities, mostly to Delhi, to earn their living. Mr. Thakur had followed his two elder brothers, Vinay Singh and Abhay Singh, who both work in a private company in Gurgaon, the outsourcing mega- city south of Delhi.

After he came to Delhi, he lost touch with his family, they said.

Earlier, Akshay was working at a local liquor factory in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, “but after he went to Delhi he was not in touch with us,” said his brother Abhay Singh, who has been in the village on vacation since Dec. 15.

Rejecting Mr. Singh's claim he had turned his son in, the local police said they used Mr. Thakur's mobile phone to track him down. “The moment he came to the village, we arrested him and handed him over to the Delhi police,” said Ajay Kumar, chief of the local Tandwa police station.

The Bihar state government has announced a reward for all the police officers involved in apprehending Mr. Thakur. Along with Mr. Kumar, two other police officials, Brajesh Kumar Singh and Yatvendra Kumar Singh, are on the list of rewardees.

The elder Mr. Singh said that his youngest son had no interest in education and dropped out of Pipadi High School in nearby Tandwa in the 10th grade.

The police said he has no criminal record in the village. “He was never accused in a single case here,” said Mr. Kumar. The village chowkidar, or watchman, Ram Lakhan Paswan, said the family enjoyed a “good reputation” in the area.

Biharphoto/Prashant Ravi Malti Devi, mother of Delhi gang rape case accused Akshay Thakur in Lahangkarma village, Bihar.

The entire family now lives cocooned inside its house, following local protests demanding harsh punishment for Mr. Thakur for having given the village, district and state a bad name.

Malti Devi, Mr. T hakur's mother, guesses that he might have fallen into bad company in Delhi. “But, he could not commit such a heinous crime”, she said, tears falling down her cheeks. “It would have been better if I had died before seeing all this.”