We returned to a ghost town

DHARMAPURI: Chandra (name changed), one of the 18 rape victims, vividly recalls the “maddening silence” of Vachathi when she returned from the Salem Central Prison on bail. “There was not a single soul in the village. I did not know where my parents were. Most of the houses were razed and there were no signs of human life. It was like entering a ghost town. I almost went mad at the sight,” she says.Most villagers had by then fled fearing a repeat attack. They were all hiding in the Sitheri Hills. “People lived, cooked, ate and slept under the rocks or behind the dense bushes. Some women even gave birth to children there,” says a villager.Chandra then had to go near the hills and call out her father’s name. A short while later he emerged from behind a rock. “We were in tears on seeing each other,” she says. Slowly as the villagers began entering  the village, there was more shock in store. “The forest personnel had ravaged our belongings. Our goats and livestock were gone. They had slaughtered the goats and hens for a meal and dumped the goat skin and chicken heads inside the village well. They mixed up all grains with glass splinters. There was no food to eat or clothes to change. We were driven back to primitive existence,” says Kannayi.Villagers found that their utensils, cycles, water pump and engines and even implements like the grinding stone were dumped in wells.