Ramdeer’s grandmother and sister (behind) mourn outside their home. Picture by Prem Singh

Peepalkheda village (Dausa) May 30: The wail of death is audible over a hundred metres away.

In the chorus of collective cries and synchronous chest beating — which traditionally follow a death in Rajasthan — one voice stands out.

Sitting with 20 other women — known as rudaalis — in the shade of a peepal tree outside grandson Ramdeer Gujjar’s mud house, Dhapabai’s screams are punctuated by loud, uncontrollable sobs.

The 75-year-old has nursed two generations of her family, and was waiting to do the same with the third.

But Ramdeer didn’t live to give her a great-grandchild — five bullets from the barrel of a policeman’s rifle, as he was walking on the Jaipur-Agra highway, didn’t let him.

His uncle — Dhapabai’s sole surviving son — Bachchan Singh lies on a cot nearby. He is barely conscious and his forehead is swathed in blood-soaked bandages.

Villagers claim that Bachchan was beaten up by police at home, some 2 km north of the Jaipur-Agra highway, where his nephew’s bullet-riddled body lay.

The allegation — of policemen entering homes to beat villagers, not sparing even women — rings across the three villages of Bundi, Peepalkheda and Patoli, where the worst of the violence took place.

“He (Bachchan) was beaten here, far away from the road, in his own house, by some 20 policemen with lathis. We have given him drips repeatedly, but we don’t know if he’ll survive,” Dhapabai says.

A diktat has been issued by the high command in the Gujjar community, prohibiting any of the injured from going to hospitals in Jaipur or Agra — the nearest big cities — and it was only on Dhapabai’s insistence that a doctor from Dausa was persuaded to come to Peepalkheda.

The firing is the latest in a series of tragedies in Dhapabai’s life. Her husband died soon after she gave birth to Ramdeer’s father and Bachchan. Ramdeer’s father — the elder son — left home after his wife’s death while giving birth to Ramdeer’s younger sister Phool. He never came back.

“My grandmother (Dhapabai) brought us up single-handedly.… She was our mother,” says Phool, eyes lowered.

Sitting next to her is Guddi, Ramdeer’s wife — a widow at 17.

Village elders explain that under Gujjar customs, Phool now has to take Guddi’s responsibility.

“She (Phool) wanted to study, become a doctor…. Now that dream is over. If she goes away to study, Guddi will be left alone,” one of them says.

But Phool can hardly think of her education now. The sound of the firing refuses to leave her.

Aware that her brother would be on the highway, Phool was among the first to reach the spot. “But he was already dead,” she weeps.

She finally looks up, and her eyes ask the question her voice seemingly can’t.

“Why?”