These days, you can spot Shahbazbur village, some 60 km away from Banda town, by its khaki colour. About 40 policemen stand guard here, keeping an eye on visiting politicians and media persons.

Inside one of the low huts in this village of 150 houses and about a thousand people, a young girl finishes a hurried meal before gearing up to recount her ordeal. Her father calls out to her, ?Come out. Tumhare darshan ke liye koi aaya hai.?

The girl walks towards a wooden bench where, over the last few days, she has routinely sat and told her story. Sent to Banda jail on December 15, she was kept there for a month on a complaint by BSP MLA Purshottam Naresh Dwivedi’s son for stealing a cellphone and money. The girl, who had run away from the MLA’s house two days earlier, alleges she was raped by the MLA and his men and the theft charges were a cover-up.

?I was raped by the MLA, his people and his chaprasi. He wanted me to marry his chaprasi but I refused? I ran away from his house but the MLA’s men caught up with me the next day and accused me of theft. I later told jail authorities what had happened and they began forcing me to change my statement,? she says.

After sustained media pressure and protests by Opposition parties in UP, the girl was finally released on January 15 on the orders of the Allahabad High Court.

While perhaps it was the Opposition’s combined campaign that got the girl out of prison, now begins their strife to win her loyalty. The Samajwadi Party was the first to jump into the fray. Their women’s wing came visiting and gave the girl and her family over Rs 2 lakh?a photograph of them, sitting with the girl holding wads of cash, appeared in local newspapers. Congress MLA Vivek Kumar Singh followed a couple of days later with a cheque of Rs 1 lakh.

?I was beaten up by the MLA’s men. I am scared. Will they leave me alive,? asks the girl?s father Achche Lal. ?I’ve kept all the money in the bank. I’ll spend it on my daughter’s wedding, on getting my mortgaged land back and maybe buy some land,? says Acche Lal, who mortgaged two of his three bighas for Rs 20,000 several years ago. In these parts, where cash is scarce and opportunities to make money even scarcer, financial matters can be confusing. Achche Lal had reportedly asked the government for a compensation of Rs 50 lakh. ?How much do you think I should have asked for?? he says.

He’s also confused over whether he should continue with the political party he has been associated with ?since the days of Kanshi Ram?. ?I used to give chanda (donations) to the BSP. Do you want to see the receipts,? he asks. ?I even campaigned for Purshottam Dwivedi,? he says.

While the MLA’s involvement in this case ensured attention, villages in the region abound with similar cases, of dabangs (strongmen) assaulting and kidnapping girls. ?In this particular case, the Opposition came together and the girl got justice but the challenge now is to see whether she will be able to stand on her own feet and think independently,? says Raja Bhaiyya, who runs an NGO, Vidhya Dham, in Attarra.

?The challenges in this region are many: poverty, illiteracy, low status of women,? he says pointing to the bare stony hills of Nehri, where women break stones to make a living. In the last few years, there has been very little rain in Bundelkhand, pushing the debt-ridden farmers further into debt.

And this year, the talk is already veering around its next disaster: fields of arhar destroyed in the frost, the dry, withered crops whispering ominously in the wind.