When Jagdish Pandey discovers that his two daughters are no longer in his home, he enters the office of Vanangana, abuses the social workers and threatens them with rape and murder. He files a case of kidnapping against Madhavi Kukreja and Huma Khan, the Vanangana workers, and Manju Soni, a local activist from Karvi. Vanangana lodges a complaint of threat and intimidation against Jagdish Pandey at the police station, this does not deter him and he continues to threaten them, as also his wife and children who have since been moving from place to place. They have been running, hiding, running, Ila and her three daughters.

Star News reaches Karvi and a district official says on-camera, ‘These things should remain in the family, it should not be encouraged to come out in the open or more people will be influenced to do such things.’ Another man says, ‘Well, the wife was sick all the time so what is a man to do?’ And a judicial officer of Chitrakoot says, with a smile, on-camera, ‘Child Sexual Abuse cases are ugly and disgusting. Such things should not be made public.’ Meanwhile, Jagdish Pandey files a criminal writ petition in the Allahabad High Court for the stay of his arrest. Two days later, on 7 July, Ila Pandey intervenes to oppose the stay of his arrest. On 14 July, Jagdish Pandey requests the court that on his behalf, it should attempt reconciliation with his family. On 16 July there is an in-camera hearing with Ila and her eleven-year-old who refuse the offer of reconciliation. The court decrees that the case has to proceed and be decided on merit.

On 25 July the bail application of Jagdish Pandey, filed in the sessions court at Karvi/Chitrakoot, is rejected. Since he has spent forty-eight hours in police custody, he is suspended from his job. This comes into effect only when a group of women demonstrate outside the premises of the dairy department as well as outside the judicial and police premises. Jagdish Pandey’s brothers in Karvi continue to threaten the social workers as well as Ila Pandey through her parents. On 5 August, the kidnapping complaints against the social workers are registered as first information reports and the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court in Karvi directs that action—arrest and investigation—begin, following an application filed by Jagish Pandey’s brothers at the court. The first information report covers the following sections of the Indian Penal Code: 363 (kidnapping or maiming a minor for begging), 366 (kidnapping, abduction or inducing a woman to end her marriage), 380 (theft in dwelling house), 387 (putting a person in fear of death and/or grievous hurt for extortion). All these offences are cognizable and non-bailable. In other words, the women who helped Ila Pandey can be arrested and thrown into jail at any minute.

One man commits incest, his brothers support him. How many women—how many generations of them—pay for it?

Yet the women supporting Ila Pandey and she herself stand firm. In October 1999 they hold a ‘jan sunvaai’—a unique public hearing—in Karvi. Ila stands up to speak, as do several other women to narrate their stories of complete helplessness when it comes to physically and sexually protecting their girl children. Women in the audience break down as other women speak and weep, haltingly.