On a day when the Kerala society was busy praising the Delhi court that sentenced the four December 16 rapist-killers to death in a speedy judicial process, the 18-year-old cases relating to the Vithura serial rape scandal of Kerala on Friday entered an uncertain phase with a special court declaring the victim as having turned hostile after she failed to identify her tormentors.
When seven of the 11 cases in which trials were yet to be completed in the Vithura serial rape scandal were taken up by the Special Court in Kottayam on Friday, the victim told the judge that she could not recall from her memory the faces of her rapists though all the accused in the seven cases were present in the court.
Among the accused whom the victim, who developed physical discomfort during the proceedings, failed to identify included Aluva Municipal chairman Jacob Moothedan and former Additional Director General of prosecutions KC Peter. The prosecution pointed out that the victim could not identify the accused as their appearance had changed over the years.
The victim, now 34, had adopted the same position when four other cases registered as part of the rape scandal were taken up for trial on September 2 by the same court. All that the victim could do was to confirm from her memory that she had been raped by several men and the brutal acts had taken place at various places where different languages were spoken.
Special Judge S Shajahan had on that day declared that the victim had turned hostile in those four cases. The case would now be taken up on October 1. The Vithura rape scandal, similar to the sensational Suryanelli serial rape scandal in many ways, had taken place in 1995 when the victim was just 16 years old and the trial effectively started only on September 2.
“Many of my colleagues are now accusing her of playing withdrawal tactics. I don’t think she is doing it. But what is wrong in it even if she is really doing thatIJ What were the law enforcers and the justice delivery system doing all these 18 years when she was being made to recount her own pain and humiliation again and againIJ” asked a senior lawyer of the Kerala High Court.
The victim, now a wife and a mother, had in 2011 approached the Kerala High Court seeking clubbing of the trials in all the cases but the plea was turned down. When she pleaded to the trial court that she be allowed to make her statements in all cases on a single day, this too was turned down by the judge.
The brutal ordeal for the then 16-year-old girl with a poor background and hailing from Vithura, a village in Thiruvananthapuram, had taken place after one Santhosh took her to several places promising her a job and presented her to several men between October, 1995 and May, 1996.
The trial was to start on August 12 as per a decision the court took in May last in the context of the widespread demand for early delivery of justice to rape victims following the protests associated with the Delhi gang rape-murder. In May, 2007, the court had acquitted cine actor Jagathy Sreekumar, one of the accused in the Vithura scandal.
Unfortunately, this is not the only rape case that had been going on for years without conclusion. The Suryanelli case pertaining to the serial rape of a 16-year-old girl for 40 continuous days by over 40 men has been going on without closure since 1996. Since 1996, the victim has been consistently accusing Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien of being one of her tormentors.
A convincing closure is yet to be arrived at in the cases of the sexual abuse of 15-year-old Sari S Nair of Kiliroor who died on November 13, 2004 after giving birth to a baby girl at the end of exploitation by several men promising roles in TV serials and of 15-year-old Anagha of Kaviyoor who committed suicide along with her parents and two siblings in September, 2004.
