The victim of the shocking Suryanelli rape scandal, relating to the brutal serial rape of a 16-year-old girl from Suryanelli village in Kerala’s Idukki district by 42 men in 41 days in 1996, got justice on Friday, 18 long years after her horrifying ordeal. The Kerala High Court upheld a special court order of 2000 awarding life imprisonment to prime accused Dharmarajan, a lawyer.
The High Court also upheld the order of punishment of the special court on 23 other accused, including senior Congress leader Jacob Stephen, by awarding them imprisonment of terms varying from four to 13 years. Seven of the accused were acquitted. Another High Court bench had in 2005 virtually annulled the special court order by acquitting 35 accused.
The Suryanelli scandal had become sensational even at the national level with the victim alleging that Congress leader and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien was one of the rapists. Though Kurien’s name has been cleared by police and various courts, the victim, now 33, persists in the allegation and her plea against him is under the consideration of the High Court.
The special division bench comprising Justices KT Sankaran and Ml Joseph Francis also rejected the humiliating observations — that the victim had acted like a child prostitute, that she did not try to escape and that she was of deviant behaviour — which the bench of Justices R Basant and Abdul Gafoor had made against the victim in 2005 while acquitting the 35 accused.
Stating that there was no reason to disbelieve the statements of the victim and the evidence she provided, the division bench said that she could not be considered a child prostitute as there was no evidence of her accepting money from anyone. Instead, Dharmarajan and others had forcibly taken all the money and gold ornaments she had.
The court also pointed out that the victim was in no state to try to escape as the rapists continued to torture her mercilessly in captivity despite her repeated appeals to let her go. The division bench, which accepted the prosecution’s argument on the conspiracy behind the scandal, said it was improper and unjust to describe the victim as deviant.
“We are happy about the present verdict. It is a slap on the face of Justice Basant who humiliated my child,” said the victim’s mother while her father said no judge, however learned he was, should be this arrogant because “we are nothing before God”. However, Justice Basant said, “let them say what they want,” refusing to change his position.
The 16-year-old girl from Suryanelli was abducted on January 16, 1996 as she left her school in Munnar where she was a Class IX student and was brutally raped in captivity by several men at various places where her lover Raju, his accomplice Usha and Dharmarajan had taken her till they left her back at her village in a terrible condition on February 26.
She named 42 men, including Kurien as the rapists. The trial was held at the special court in Kottayam which sentenced 36 of them to imprisonment of varying terms in 2000. However, a High Court bench in 2005 acquitted 35 of them with scathing observations against the victim. The Kerala Government and the victim appealed to the Supreme Court against this verdict.