Akku Yadav (1972-2004) was an Indian serial criminal, who was involved in activities like robbery, home-invading, kidnapping, rape, and murder. On 13 August 2004, hundreds of women took their revenge by stabbing him to death at Nagpur District Court in Vidarbha, Maharashtra.
Wiki/Biography
Akku Yadav aka Bharat Kalicharan Yadav was born in 1972 (age 32 years; at the time of death) in Nagpur, Maharashtra. He grew up in a slum in Kasturba Nagar, Nagpur, Maharashtra.
Physical Appearance
Height (approx.): 5′ 6″
Hair Colour: Black
Eye Colour: Black
Family
Parents & Siblings
His father was a milkman. He had two brothers named Santosh and Yuvraj.
Akku Yadav- A Serial Rapist
Akku Yadav used to live in a slum area and started a small business in the area of Dalit people. Akku Yadav belonged to a general category and used to consider himself a man of the higher caste. At a very young age, Akku started getting involved in criminal activities. Initially, he started his criminal activities by stealing money and invading home. Gradually, he started committing heinous crimes like murders, kidnapping, and rape. Mostly, he used to carry out his criminal activities in the slum area where he used to live. People of the slum area then complained against him, but he had the support of the local police and a few politicians. He used to bribe the local police, so the local police never arrested him. This gave him the power to freely carry on criminal activities in his area. Akku Yadav used to have an evil eye on the women of the slum area. He started molesting and raping women in his area. In almost 10 years, he raped around 40 women in the slum. He even stabbed a few women who complained against him. People of the slum were so frightened of him that whenever he used to walk around the slum, the women and girls used to hide inside their homes, and the men of the slum avoided making eye contact with him. Once, a woman named Pratibha Urkude and her husband Dattu shared that they used to run a grocery shop in the slum area where Akku used to live. Akku often harassed them by picking up goods from the shop without paying for them. He would also demand money from them. Akku never allowed people to talk in groups as he believed they would plot against him. Once, he raped a 10-year-old girl. According to one of his neighbours,
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.”
Once, 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 detained for a year under the Maharashtra preventive detention law. He was even arrested more than 10 times by the local police, but as he had good relations with the local police and a few politicians, he was always released on bail. Akku then continued his criminal activities in the area. He once beat an elderly man for not paying Rs 100, he raped a woman right after her wedding, and later, he stripped a man naked and burned him with a cigarette. He then forced the man to dance naked in front of his daughter. Akku even cut off the breasts of a few women living in his area. A woman even burnt herself after she was raped by Akku, and her complaint was not heard by the local police. In 2004, around 300 families were living in the slum area of Akku Yadav, and one such family was of Madhukar. Madhukar had a daughter named Usha, who was studying hotel management in a college away from the slum and was living in a hostel. During her college holidays, she came to her parents’ home to spend her holidays. While she was at her home, goons of Akku Yadav attacked Usha’s neighbours for complaining against Akku Yadav. On hearing her neighbours scream, she came out of her home and asked the goons to leave the family otherwise she would complain against them to the police. When Akku Yadav got to know about this, he, along with his gang, came to Usha’s house. Akku threw a bottle of acid at the door of her home and warned her that he would throw acid on her face and rape her if she complained about him. Usha’s parents then opened the door, but Usha was not frightened by Akku and replied that she would file a complaint against him. Then, Akku Yadav’s men forcefully entered the room. Usha ran to the kitchen and opened the cooking gas knob and held a matchbox in her hand. She said that if they did anything with her parents or her, she would burn the matchstick. Akku Yadav got scared and went back with his men. This incident changed the life of the people in the slum area.
The people of the slum who were watching the incident from their windows saw Akku Yadav getting scared of someone for the first time. They then decided to team up to get rid of Akku Yadav. The next day of the incident, slum people gathered and went to Akku’s home. They lit up his home in the fire, but Akku was not present at his home.
When Akku Yadav got to know that slum people were looking for him, he escaped. He then went to the local police and surrendered for his crimes. He thought that the police station would be the safest place for him to protect himself from the slum people. He was also aware that the local police were with him and that he would soon come out on bail. The slum people were very upset about this as they knew Akku would come out on bail and will continue his criminal activities in the slum area.
Death
After surrendering to the local police, Akku Yadav had a hearing at Nagpur District Court in Vidarbha, Maharashtra on 13 August 2004. When slum people got to know about this they were aware that he would be released on bail. So, the slum people decided that they would punish Akku Yadav on their own. Then, around 200 women from Akku Yadav’s slum area gathered at the premises of the court where Akku Yadav was brought by the police. While Akku was walking towards the courtroom, he saw a woman in the crowd whom he had raped earlier. He loudly called her ‘Vaishya’ (prostitute). The woman who was standing quietly got so angry over him that she pulled out her slipper, pushed the police, and started beating Akku with the slipper. She then shouted,
This time, either I will kill you, or you will kill me.”
Within seconds, the crowd of women who had red chilli powder and knives hidden in their sarees threw chilli powder into the eyes of the police. When Akku Yadav was left alone, women threw red chilli powder all over his body, pulled out the knives and stabbed him to death. A woman then cut his genitals because earlier, Akku had cut off her breasts. On being lynched, he even pleaded to forgive him, but the women did not stop. Within five minutes, the premises of the courtroom was painted red in Akku’s blood.
Aftermath
After killing Akku Yadav, the bloodied women walked towards their slum area with pride. After reaching the slum, they proudly told the men that they had taken their revenge. There was a celebration in the slum. People cooked lambs and distributed sweets in the area. The police speculated that the women were led by Usha however she was not present in the court. After investigating Akku’s men, the local police arrested Usha. When the local people got the news that Usha got arrested, they started protesting in front of the local police station. Due to the lack of evidence against Usha, she was then released. Later, while talking to the reporters, the senior officials of the local police 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.”
While talking about the incident, a retired high court judge, Bhau Vahane 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.”
When the reporters 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 then arrested 21 people in the lynching case out of which 3 died during the court trials. Later, all other accused were released.
Facts/Trivia
- In 2011, a Hindi documentary titled ‘Candles in the Wind’ was released which is based on lynching of Akku Yadav.
- On 4 December 2013, Akku Yadav’s nephew named Mukri Chhotelal Yadav was stabbed by two teenagers for sexually harassing one of the teenagers’ grandmother.
- In 2015, a Telugu film titled ‘Keechaka’ was released based on the story of Akku Yadav and his lynching.
- In 2021, a Hindi film titled ‘200 Halla Ho’ was released on Zee5, depicting the story of Akku Yadav and his lynching.
- Various books and stories have been published on the Akku Yadav’s lynching. Some such are ‘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 on Netflix.