Quick action of Delhi Police led to nabbing of all the culprits within three days of the gruesome 'Nirbhaya' rape, but the world changed for us, recall the younger daughter and wife of former police chief Neeraj Kumar.
Talking to PTI, Ankita, now in her late 20s and a pianist by profession, says she was dumbfounded after her father briefly mentioned the gruesome rape of the physiotherapy intern on December 16, 2012. She says memories of that night sends shivers down her spine even today.
Expressing relief at the outcome of the case, Ankita and her mother, Mala Kumar, recall how the growing protests against Kumar had made them suggest that he resign.
"As pressure was building, I did not want him to go through the ordeal. I wanted him to quit because it was becoming too much for me to take. Everyone around me was changing, I was getting threat calls and someone said they wished me and my sister get raped too, to make the police wake up," Ankita reminisced.
Both mother and daughter were critical of press and said the media only wanted to carry anti-Neeraj mar stories and anything that did not pander to their rhetoric was never aired or written.
"One day, I was at my piano school located in the basement of my house and a journalist from a TV channel walked in with his camera and asked me to comment on the inefficient police headed by my father. "I confronted him that he was in the basement of my house and he could easily harm me, and my father will only come to know once the damage has been done. I was trying to draw home a point, but probably he never understood," she says.
With four of the culprits finally hanged on Friday morning, the seven-year struggle for justice has finally ended.