Her subsequent treatment by the police, and court acquittal of the accused, attracted widespread national and international media attention, and became a landmark episode in India's women's rights movement.
[6] In 1985, Bhanwari Devi became a saathin ("friend"), a grassroots worker employed as part of the Women's Development Project (WDP) run by the Government of Rajasthan.
As part of her job, she took up issues related to land, water, literacy, health, Public Distribution System, and payment of minimum wages at famine relief works.
Since many Gujar families seemed determined to go ahead with child marriages, the Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) and the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) started making rounds of the village.
On 5 May, the day of Akha Teej, the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and SDO went to Bhateri village to stop the marriage of Ram Karan Gurjar's infant daughter.
The FIR was lodged after surmounting police scepticism and indifference, a phenomenon several rape complainants have faced in the world.
She had to cover herself with her husband's blood-stained saafa (turban) and walk 3 km to the nearest saathin's village Kherpuria, at about 1 a.m. in the night.
The PHC doctor referred her to Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital in Jaipur, but wrote in his referral that she was being sent for a test "confirming the age of the victim.
[5] On 25 September 1992, the Rajasthan Patrika, a major local newspaper, carried a small news item stating that a woman from Bhateri village had registered an FIR in Bassi thana (police station) alleging gang rape.
However, Bhanwari Devi was accused of fabricating the entire incident by the alleged rapists and their supporters, and faced public humiliation in her village.
The accused included an uncle-nephew pair, and the judge said that a middle-aged man from an Indian village could not possibly have participated in a gang rape in the presence of his own nephew.
[15] A state MLA belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party, Kanhaiya Lal Meena, organised a victory rally in the state capital Jaipur for the five accused who were now declared not guilty, and the women's wing of his political party attended the rally to call Bhanwari a liar.
Her brothers spent this money on organizing a Kumhar caste panchayat, where people were asked to accept her back into the community.
In spite of this effort, her acceptance in the community remained nominal and her son Mukesh had a difficult time finding a family willing to give their daughter in marriage to him.
Most of the money that she received as part of the Neerja Bhanot Memorial Award in 1994 was locked away in a trust to aid women.
[15] Women's activists and lawyers have propagated the view that Bhanwari attracted the ire of her rapists solely on the basis of her work.
A number of groups which championed the latter view filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court of India, under the collective platform of Vishakha.