As many as 23 violent rapes have happened after Nirbhaya's agonising death made international news in 2012. While 70% of the victims have died a painful death, the few who have survived shudder to tell their tale — like the 5-year-old who was blown apart with bottle insertions, like the 27-year-old who is still nursing a broken rib cage, 7 years after she was raped, like the 17-year-old whose insides were burnt with acid by eight of her rapists. And now, India is shuddering about the Rohtak gangrape. DEEBASHREE MOHANTY tries to figure out why rape brutality is on the rise despite so many campaigns
Eleven days after the New Delhi gangrape incident came to light in 2012, a five-year-old girl’s body was discovered in Jaipur. She was violated in the most beastly manner possible with oil bottles and shards of glass discovered inside her private parts.
Gudiya survived that day but she is still struggling to lead a normal life. There are physical anomalies that she has to deal with on a day-to-day basis which constantly remind her of the abuse she had faced in the past. She is refused admission in any school and her medical bills are becoming a hassle for the family.
In December 2014, her father, a farmer, accepted that they couldn’t afford Gudiya’s pain killers and antibiotics which means she is hurting and very susceptible to infections. Even today, the hapless parents are wondering what wrong their daughter did to deserve such a punishment.
What makes matters worse is the way this case has come and disappeared from media limelight. Exactly after two weeks of reportage, the Gudiya case slipped into oblivion with more gruesome gangrapes coming into the fray.
Hardly two months had passed after the passing away of Nirbhaya in Singapore in the most painful manner that we were torn apart with another frontpager — a 17-year-old school student in Badarpur was kidnapped, gangraped for weeks, injured and beaten before finally being burnt alive by four seniors from her school.
When a farmer discovered the charred body a week after she had gone missing, the girl was unidentifiable. “She had suffered 100 per cent burns. Even her family took a couple of days to identify the victim. Violent rape was confirmed by the autopsy. The culprits have been nabbed and await sentencing,” Jaiwant Narula, constable of the thana in Badarpur where this case is being heard, was reported as saying in June 2013.
Rape is getting worse
Social activists tell you that there is no doubt that post the Delhi gangrape incident; rape is becoming more brutal, more horrific and much more violent. “Rape as a crime has always existed in the world but these days it is becoming more violent than we can imagine. One of the reasons could be because there is a lot of sensation being created by the media around a rape incident. I am not saying that the crime should not be reported in the media. But they should not be glorified and unnecessarily sensationalised. These days there are a lot of reports that go into the graphic details of the crime committed. Is there a need for thatIJ Is this responsible journalismIJ,” celebrated activist Maria Gonzalves asks from Mumbai.
She adds that such front page graphic details is only adding as fodder to a criminal’s pervert mindset. “There is no denying that people are suffering from extreme stress and other psychological conditions which is driving them towards heinous crimes. By publishing such materials, we are only giving them ideas,” she says.
According to a recent report by Mahila Mukti Andolan, an NGO based in Haryana, there have been 23 such cases post the Nirbhaya gangrape which highlights how brutality in rape is becoming a glaring problem in India. “The rapists are aware that they can be more violent and can do things with inanimate objects too. With each case, the violence is increasing.
There is a competitive spirit among these criminals where they want to be one up against the other,” Mridula Shankar who has been at the helm of this NGO since 2005, says. She tells you that this competition is driving men to do violent things with the victim.
It’s no longer just rape
According to the latest National Crime Records Bureau statistics, almost 94 rapes happen per day in India. The number of rapes in Delhi has almost doubled from 585 in 2012 to 2,441 in 2014 and the numbers are only piling up. In 2015, there are already 13 cases from across the country. But the worrying problem is that 70 per cent of these rapes are physically violent, done to cause maximum damage to the victim.
Why is this aggravated rape on a rise in IndiaIJ Social analysts say the profile of the criminal is changing and that is a root cause of all problems. “Rape is nothing new but the profile of the rapists is rapidly changing which is the cause of a lot of duress. Earlier, the rapists were known to the victims and could be easily identified. But today, there are complete strangers indulging in this heinous crime. It is becoming impossible to track these offenders down because they are completely unknown to the victim or her family,” Shankar says.
She adds that the reason for rape is also becoming more and more preposterous — If you are a spurned lover, rape the victim to take revenge. If you have had a fight with the family, rape the daughter to avenge yourself. You have been be-littled by a person in publicIJ Rape her to prove a point. “It is becoming the fastest way to seek revenge or to avenge oneself.
But it is no longer just about the crime. It is more about the nature of the crime that is disturbing. The more violent and physical it is, the more the thrill in it for such criminals. Violent rapes are becoming a trophy for the offenders. This needs to be curbed immediately,” Gonzalves warns.
In the recent Rohtak incident which has shook the country with its sheer brutality involved in the gangrape, the operating doctor said he had never seen something so barbaric in his entire life.
“The girl’s heart and lungs were missing. Her vagina walls had torn and there was a nine-inch stick discovered inside her. The stick must have snapped and broken inside her private parts. There were around 30 condoms recovered from inside her body. Before passing out, the girl must have gone through unbearable pain and torture. Even if she had survived the rape, she would have been hampered physically for life,” Dr Ramesh Thakur tells The Pioneer. He says this is the second such incident reported from Rohtak.
“last October, we had an emergency case where a rape victim’s private parts were burnt with acid. Her inners were burnt without repair. She was wincing in pain for three days even after the administration of pain killers. She was raped by three complete strangers who tied her up and took turns in sexually assaulting her. They even poured acid inside her private parts and shot a video of her shouting in pain with her hands tied over her head. Her genitals are completely destroyed,” Thakur says.
Society & TV to blame
Sociologists in the Capital feel the TV content somehow boosts the morale of the pervert. “Abusive language, raunchy item numbers, porn in cinema and TV shows and aggressive behaviour is being propelled on the small screen and other mediums. It is considered to be fashionable if you know the various abuses in various languages.
As if the Internet is not enough, there is free porn for viewing on TV as well. Young children are keen to watch episodes where crime is being showcased and highlighted. They are very involved in reality crime shows and prefer watching cartoons which are high on the action quotient. All this is adding up the bigger problem at hand,” sociologist Neeta Behura, makes a point.
According to her, criminals are wanting to ape how crimes are committed in the west. “They watch all kinds of videos and get ideas on how to cause maximum damage either by brutally raping or murdering the victim. Since our laws are weak, we must do something to curb such mindless content making its way into our homes,” she suggests a way to curb this growing menace.
In August 2013, two sisters were raped and hanged in Badaun district and they were cremated even before the police reached the crime scene. However, a local doctor came to the fore saying that it was not a case of suicide but the sisters (aged 8 and 13 years) were hanged alive and that too for hours before they finally choked to death.
The doctor said that the girls were raped by multiple men and then publically hanged for five hours before they succumbed to their injury. No one came forward to help them. Although the police are still investigating this brutal rape, there is no witness willing to testify against the incident.
“The fact that they can get away even after committing such a grievous crime is what gives these criminals a wrong sense of pride. They are not too fettered about a judgement that could not go in their favour. One can draw a comparison with a similar case in Malaysia in 2003 where the accused had raped and hanged their victims in full public view and got away from punishment because no one came forward to report the matter,” Anandmayee Ghosh, sociologist and researcher who has written extensively about why rapes are becoming a phenomenon in India, says. Ghosh says the patriarchal set-up in the Northern part of India is only abetting such crimes and criminals.
“If you keep treating the men in your house as if they are Godmen who can never do anything wrong, be prepared to face the consequences. It’s high time the sons are taught a life lesson. Respect for women has to be practised in each and every household whatever income group the family may come from. Only then will we see a decline in rapes in this country,” Ghosh points out. He tells you that the skewed sex ratios in places like Rajasthan, Harayana and Uttar Pradesh leads to an increase in sexual assaults.
Don’t want to kill, only damage
“The intention of the perpetrators is not to kill the victim after sexually assaulting her. They want to damage her for life. It brings them some sadistic pleasure to find the victim handicapped forever. They want their victim to endure every strand of pain and suffering and that is a worrying problem,” Natasha Setalvad (name changed), an MBA and professional with a reputed IT firm in Gurgaon, says. Setalvad had fired an FIR on December 26, 2014 against a guard and a manager of a popular pub who were harassing her and a friend.
“First they tried to get fresh with us but when we raised an alarm and got the attention of a few other guests at the pub, the manager started defending himself and called us names. He even went to the extent of saying that we were creating this mess only because we wanted some freebies. We were embarrassed, so we left from there and headed back to the parking lot.
The guard followed us to the basement and blocked the rear exit door. He was abusing us and saying that he will see to it that no one spits on our body after today. ‘Thukne layak nahin chodunga.. he kept murmuring as we ran from there. Thankfully, the other exit door was crowded with people wanting to enter the mall. The guard had magically vanished by then,” 27-year-old Setalvad recounts her horror.
She had also taken the social media by a storm posting pictures (snapshots of the guard and manager) and details of the incident on Twitter and Facebook. Apart from the manhandling by the guard and manager, Setalvad says she will never forget how the guard was muttering under his breath. “He was angry and desperate to prove a point.
He meant every word of what he was saying,” she says. Her friend has since moved back to her native place in Bihar and Setalvad makes it a point to never take that route again. “We had registered a complaint at the Sushant lok police station and the guard was summoned for questioning. He also spent a few days in the lock up but he was allowed to go because there was no concrete evidence against him,” Setalvad recalls.
She had a brush with destiny but not all girls meet this fate. 25-year-old Nalini (name changed) was raped by a pub owner and his friends in 2006. They punctured her left eye and damaged the cornea in the other. She was beaten in her chest with a heavy object and suffered a fractured rib cage. Nalini is languishing in the MMA NGO on the corner most bed. Her parents refused to accept her and her fiancee abandoned her from that very day.
“She was discovered by one of our volunteers in the Safdarjung hospital. Nalini had been dumped there by her parents who could not afford her treatment. At that time she could barely see and was nursing a broken chest. We got her one eye operated upon and she has 40 per cent vision on that one.
“The other eye is completely damaged. She is still being treated for her rib cage. Nalini used to work for a night club in an upmarket hotel in New Delhi. Her boss had offered her a lift once or twice and Nalini had not refused. He thought it was okay for him to make a pass at the poor worker. On August 13, he and a couple of his friends invited Nalini to join them for a drink.
He asked her to sit on his lap and make him drink from his glass. When she refused, he got extremely angry. They dragged her to the parking lot of the hotel and took turns in raping her. later, they beat her with cricket bats and punched her eyes intending to blind her forever,” Shankar recounts the case of one of her survivors at the NGO.
She adds that not a day goes by when Nalini doesn’t get up sweaty in the middle of the night. “Her rapists have been sentenced by a court but Nalini feels they are still coming for her. Whenever she coughs, her chest bones hurt and it brings back the tragedy of that night to her,” Shankar reiterates about the painful condition of the rape victims. There are 17 survivors in her NGO alone who are fighting a lone battle.
With violence accompanying a rape, it becomes impossible for the victim to bounce back and take things in her stride, something that the law should take into account before pronouncing a sentence to the rapist.
“There are many loopholes in our system which criminals take advantage of. Although aggravated and violent sex is treated as a different section which invites more punishment, our lawmakers fail to make the case under that section. Many criminals get away because the right section has not been applied to their crimes. It is sad because in India, violence in rapes is fast becoming a reality which we can’t ignore,” Gonzalves says in conclusion.