She is 18-year-old and is the victim of one of the most brutal serial rape incidents Kerala has ever heard of. She now wants to study and show to her tormentors one day that she can live a dignified life. But she has this strong feeling that the endless delay in the trial in the cases could keep her in a Rescue Home hell-hole for entire life.
The hapless victim of Kerala’s infamous Paravur sex scandal has written to State Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala requesting them to save her from the hell-like life in the Observation Home in Kochi where she is virtually a prisoner due to security reasons while those who had pushed her into that life are out on bail, enjoying their lives.
“The trial in the cases had started two years ago but only six cases have been settled so far. Trial in 42 more cases is still to take place. If things are proceeding at this rate it would take ten-20 years more for the cases to be completed. I am really scared to think of what my condition could be by then,” the rape victim says in her letter. It was none other than her father, Sudheer, who had thrown her into the flesh trade, where over 150 men abused her for two years, after raping her when she was just 15 by keeping her at knife-point and by threatening to kill her younger brother if she did not cooperate. Sudheer is the first accused in all the cases related to the scandal.
The shocking scandal came to light in June, 2011 after the girl approached the police with the help of a relative following her escape from the grip of the flesh trade mafia. The minor girl’s tormentors included a 61-year-old grandfather, a CPI(M) leader, several film personalities, police officers, public work contractors, bureaucrats and industrialists. “The pangs I am going through when the cases are taken for examination in the court are far worse than what I had experienced from my tormentors in those two years. What kind of questions are the lawyers of the accused asking meIJ” the girl writes in her letter to the Chief Minister.
In the letter that starts with the statement, “I am the girl of Paravur sex scandal”, the girl said that though a division bench of the High Court had ordered completion of trial in all the cases within two years from 2011, this is not being done and the prosecutors are getting extensions from the court as they have not been paid for the six cases that had already been settled.
“My desire is to live a life of dignity after studying as far as I can,” writes the girl who had passed her Plus II examination with over 60 percent marks despite the constraints at the Observation Home. “However, I can’t study in a college because of security problems and I have no one to take care of the expenses,” laments the girl. “…Therefore I humbly request you to help me by adopting the measures required for completing the cases speedily and to make available the assistance I need to study well,” she says in the letter she had written in the presence of the police personnel, who had been helping her study at the Observation Home.
The Paravur serial rape victim’’s letter assumes significance as the Kerala High Court is to pass its verdict soon in the case pertaining to the 18-year-old Suryanelli serial rape scandal in which 42 men raped a 16-year-old girl for 41 days. Despite that trauma, the victim is still going ahead bravely with her legal battle against her tormentors.
The letter is also significant as a reminder of the frailty of the justice delivery system as seen in the cases relating to the 19-year-old Vithura serial rape scandal in which over 20 accused had been acquitted in the past three weeks. When a special court took up the cases three months ago, the victim said she was unable to identify any of her tormentors as 19 long years had passed by.