Guwahati, Feb. 2: Stripped naked on a street of Guwahati and photographed as she ran in fear and shame, an Adivasi girl returned today in search of justice.

“Guwahati to me is a land of animals,” said the shaken teenager who had to be taken to hospital and given sedatives on her way here.

“Our people in the villages are more educated in the real sense. They know how to behave with women. Here, they have only degrees,” she told the media before giving evidence to the Justice Manisena Singh Commission.

She had not appeared in public since the horror of November 24 and had vowed never to set foot in Guwahati again, but changed her mind so that truth and justice would prevail.

The commission, which held a closed-door hearing for her and a woman who said she had been gangraped that Saturday, is to hand in its probe report before the month-end on the Beltola violence when local mobs had attacked tribal marchers. One person was killed and 200 were injured.

The daughter of a farmer who had joined the tribal rally because it would give her a chance to see Guwahati recalled how she was chased by two motorcyclists and then stripped naked as some other men beat her up and threw stones at her.

“In that state, I ran to a few women seeking shelter but they chased me away,” she said. Running for her life, she might not have noticed the smiling youths who clicked away with cellphone cameras. “It was finally a gentleman who offered me a piece of cloth.”

Even the policemen at the police station where she had sought refuge had made her kneel down although she had little to cover her. “They are not human beings,” she said, eyes blazing.

Four youths arrested for stripping her have since been released on bail.

“She is my only daughter and look what those animals have done to her. They must be punished,” said her father, who accompanied the girl to the hearing at Circuit House.

On the 250km journey from her Biswanath Chariali home to Guwahati, she broke down and threw up repeatedly.

“We took her to hospital where she was administered an injection and given medicine. Finally, she was able to reach here,” said Binod Digal, an office-bearer of the All Adivasi Students Association of Assam. The rally that was attacked on November 24 had been organised by the association to demand Scheduled Tribe status for Adivasis.

Trouble had started that day after a motorcyclist hit a girl who was one of the marchers, she said. “Some of our members beat him up for reckless driving and all hell broke loose.”

Two more victims gave evidence today, one of them a woman who said she had been gangraped in an open field after she fell down. “I remember nothing after that and later found myself in hospital.”