Akku Yadav

Some Lesser Known Facts About Akku Yadav

• Akku Yadav was an Indian criminal, who was involved in activities like robbery, home invasion, murder, rape, and kidnapping. On 13 August 2004, he was lynched by a mob of 200 women at the premises of Nagpur District Court in Vidarbha, Maharashtra.

• He was brought up in a slum in Kasturba Nagar, Nagpur, Maharashtra.

• He had a small business in the slum area where the majority of Dalits used to live. He was of general caste so he used to consider himself as a man of the higher caste. ^[3]Book- Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

• Soon after his father’s death, Akku’s family started facing financial difficulties. They then started selling their cows and buffaloes. Soon, they ran out of money, and then Akku followed his elder brothers and started getting involved in criminal activities. He started by stealing money and invading home. By the time, his courage grew day by day, and then he started committing heinous crimes like murders, kidnapping, and rape. He used to commit crimes mainly in the slum area where he was living.

• Some people from the slum area complained against him at the local police station, but their complaints were left unheard as Akku used to bribe the local police. He even had the support of a few politicians, so he used to commit crimes without any fear.

• In Akku’s slum area, a woman named Asha Bhagat used to lice who was an alcohol seller. She was the only person in the area who did not fear Akku Yadav. People in the slum used to consider her their saviour. Asha wanted to end Akku Yadav’s terror from the slum. One day, she called a few men and asked them to attack Akku Yadav. The men then called Akku for having alcohol with them. They made him overdrunk, and then the men attacked him. However, he escaped from there. Akku had several injuries on his body. His friend named Avinash Tiwari then donated blood to him. Akku was very good friends with Avinash, but he did not like Avinash and Asha’s bond. One day, Akku and Avinash had a fight over Asha. Akku then brought a knife from his home and stabbed Avinash Tiwari. Akku was even jailed, but due to his good relations with the local police, he was released on bail within 10 months. After coming out of jail, he decided to kill Asha Bhagat. One day, he entered her home and cut her body into pieces.
• He used to have an evil eye on the women in the slum area. He used to molest and rape women in the slum. From a 10-year-old-girl to 7-months-pregnant-women, he raped almost every woman in his slum. He raped around 40 women in 10 years. A few women even complained against him, but the local police did not file their complaints. When Akku got to know that women have complained against him, he cut off their breasts and even killed some women.

• Gradually, his terror among the people grew. Whenever Akku used to roam around the slum, the women of the slum used to hide inside their homes and men used to bow their heads down to avoid making eye contact with him.

• Akku never let people in slums make groups and talk because he believed that they would plot something against him.

• In an interview, a woman named Pratibha Urkude from Akku’s village shared that she, along with her husband Dattu, used to run a grocery shop in the slum. Akku used to pick up the goods from their shop and never paid for them. Once, one of his neighbours said,
  

  Yadav was the ‘Gabbar Singh of Kasturba Nagar.’ We stayed mostly indoors when Akku was around. Yadav and his gang would invade homes any time of the day. He sometimes wanted a motorcycle or would grab a mobile phone or extort money. Yadav and his gang members would beat up anyone who resisted them. He murdered a woman named Asha Bai, daughter of Anjana Bai Borkar, in front of her 16-year-old granddaughter. He cut off a woman’s ears for her earrings and her fingers because he could not get her rings.”

  Later, another female victim of Akku Yadav said,

  He came to our house at 4:00– AM–5:00 AM. Yadav knocked aggressively on the door saying he was a police official and asked us to open it. Once Yadav entered, he stabbed my husband in the thigh with a knife, locked him in the bathroom and dragged me by my hair away to a place where he raped me. Yadav allowed me to return after three or four hours.”

• In 1999, he was arrested under the Maharashtra preventive detention law, and he was even arrested 10 times by the local police. However, he was always released on bail as he had good relations with the local police.

• Akku Yadav then continued his criminal activities. He once beat an elderly man for Rs 100 and burned a naked man with a cigarette. Within 10 years of his terror in the slum area, he committed many heinous crimes.

• In 2004, out of 300 families living in the slum area, one family was of Madhukar, who had a daughter named Usha. Usha was studying hotel management in a college away from the slum and was staying in a hostel. She once came to her parents’ home to spend her holidays. One day, Akku Yadav’s men came to Usha’s neighbour to threaten them for complaining against Akku Yadav. On hearing the neighbours’ loud scream, Usha came out and asked Akku’s goons to go away otherwise she would complain against them in the police station. Akku’s goon then went to Akku and told him whatever happened. Akku Yadav, along with his men, came to Usha’s house with a bottle of acid. He threw the acid at the door of her home and warned her to stay from his matter otherwise he would rape her and burn her face with acid. Then, her parents opened the door and Usha replied to Akku that she would complain against him at the police station.

• Akku Yadav’s men got angry over this and forcefully entered Usha’s home. Usha then ran towards the kitchen and opened the gas knob and while holding a matchbox she warned Akku and his goons that if they did something wrong with Usha or her parents, she would burn the matchstick and everything would be on fire. Akku Yadava got scared of it and went back with his men.

  

• The people of the slum were watching everything from their windows. They observed that for the first time Akku got scared of someone. They then decided to team up against Akku Yadav. The next day, people from the slum went to Akku’s home and lit his home on fire. Akku was not at his home, and later, his goons told him that the slum people have revolted against him.

  

• Akku Yadav then escaped from the slum and surrendered at the local police station as he was aware that it would be the safest place for him. Also, the local police supported him so he knew that he would come out on bail.

• When the slum people got to know about it, they decided to punish him on their own as they knew that Akku would soon be released on bail. On 13 August 2004, he was taken to the Nagpur District Court in Vidarbha, Maharashtra for a hearing of his case. Around 200 women of the slum gathered in the court with a packet of red chilli powder and knives hidden in their sarees. While Akku Yadav was walking towards the courtroom, he saw a woman (whom he had raped earlier) in the crowd. He called her ‘Vaishya’ (prostitute). This made the woman very angry. She rushed towards him and pushed the policemen away; she pulled out her slipper and started beating him with her slipper. She then shouted,
  

  This time, either I will kill you, or you will kill me.”

• Immediately, the mob of women rushed towards him, they threw chilli powder in the eyes of the police and started stabbing Akku Yadav and threw chilli powder in his eyes and mouth. A woman (whose breasts were earlier cut off by Akku) from the mob cut the genitals of Akku. He even requested the mob to forgive him, but the women did not stop and lynched him. Within 5 minutes, the courtroom was coloured red in Akku Yadav’s blood. ^[4]India Times

  

• After killing him, the women walked towards their slum area with pride. On reaching the slum, they proudly told the men of the slum that they took the revenge. The people of the slum celebrated Akku’s death by cooking lamb and distributing sweets.

• Later, during the investigation, the local police arrested Usha for leading the women in Akku’s death. Soon, the people gathered in front of the local police station and protested to release Usha. Later, due to the lack of evidence, Usha was released. While talking to the reporters, the senior officials of the local police then said,
  

  The lynching was done by four men with sharp weapons, and the women of Kasturba Nagar claimed responsibility for the lynching to protect those men. There were at least two rival gangs working the basti and Eknath Chavan, who had fallen out with Akku, was the member of the rival gang. Eknath Chavan and his gang members had manipulated the women into providing them the cover to kill Akku.”

  A retired high court judge Bhau Vahane then talked about the incident. He said,

  In the circumstances they underwent, they were left with no alternative but to finish Akku. The women repeatedly pleaded with the police for their security. But the police failed to protect them.”

  Later, the reporter asked Jija More, one of the victims of Akku Yadav about the lynching. She said,

  I’m proud of what we did…. If anybody has to be punished, we’ll all be punished. We women have become fearless. We were protecting the men.”

• The local police arrested 21 people in the lynching case out of which 3 died during the court trials. However, the other accused were then released.

• In 2011, a Hindi documentary titled ‘Candles in the Wind’ based on the lynching of Akku Yadav was released.

• On 4 December 2013, his nephew Mukri Chhotelal Yadav was also stabbed by two teenagers. Akku’s nephew used to sexually harass one of the teenagers’ grandmother. ^[5]The Times of India

• A few films have been released on the lynching of Akku Yadav including ‘Keechaka’ (Telugu; 2015) and ‘200 Halla Ho’ (Hindi; 2021).

  

• A few books and articles have also been published on Akku Yadav such as ‘Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,’ ‘News of Boundless Riches: Interrogating, Comparing, and Reconstructing Mission in a Global Era,’ and ‘Killing Justice: Vigilantism in Nagpur.’

• In 2022, a Hindi Netflix series ‘Indian Predator: Murder In A Courtroom’ was released based on the lynching of Akku Yadav.