Gangraped in teens, visiting courts as grandmothers
Ajmer
Jyoti Yadav
29 January 2022, The Print.
A gangrape survivor’s anger tore through the old, yellowing POCSO courtroom in Rajasthan’s Ajmer last December. “Why are you still calling me to court again and again? It has been 30 years,” she shouted at the judge, lawyers, and the accused present in the court. “I am now a grandmother, leave me alone.”
The court was stunned into silence.
“We have families. What do we tell them?” she raged.
Her words made headlines in the local edition of Dainik Bhaskar. The infamous gangrape case of Rajasthan from 1992, referred to as the “Ajmer blackmail kaand (scandal)”, is an open wound even today, resisting cure or closure for the survivors.
Long before the Delhi Public School (DPS) ‘MMS scandal’ in 2004, this was a case of multiple young women being gangraped and blackmailed into submission and silence with video recordings and photos. The Ajmer gangrape case was born out of a toxic mix of political patronage, religious reach, impunity and small-town glamour — and had it not been for an intrepid city crime reporter, it may never have reached the courts.
Everyone in Ajmer knew who the accused were — the famous Chishty duo, Farooq and Nafis, who belonged to the extended family associated with the Ajmer Sharif Dargah, and their gang of pals. These men had trapped scores of young school-going girls with threats and blackmail for months and gangraped them. A photo colour lab printed the nude photographs of the women and helped circulate them.
When the story broke, religious tensions rose in Ajmer and the city even shut down. But, not many knew who the women were and where they disappeared after their cases exploded in public debate.
The local media called the women “IAS-IPS ki betiyan (daughters of IAS and IPS officers)” but they were no elites. Many came from modest, middle-class families of government employees, among whom several left Ajmer in the wake of the uproar.
The police records mention the rape survivors’ first names and vague government colony addresses from which they moved out long ago. School students back then, the gangrape survivors have since moved to different cities with their partners and children and grandchildren, making it nearly impossible for the police to keep track.
Over the decades, the courts summoned the survivors every time an accused surrendered or was arrested. Every time a trial started, policemen landed at the women’s houses in different parts of the state to deliver the summons.
Lawyers say that under Section 273 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the court has to record the survivor’s testimony in the presence of the accused — a process that ends up re-traumatising the women.
Even the police are frustrated. “How many times will we drag them to court? On phone calls, they abuse us. Every time they see a policeman at their doors, they get terrified,” Dalbeer Singh, the station house office (SHO) of Dargah Police Station, said.
For about a year, Singh has been assigned the job of delivering the summons and bringing the survivors to court. He described it as “one hell of a task”.
“One family said that their daughter died. Another family sent a lawyer to threaten me. At least three victims tried to kill themselves after recording their statements in court,” Singh added.
Since the trial began in September 1992, the police have filed six chargesheets, naming 18 accused (up from eight initially) and more than 145 witnesses. The case has spanned 12 public prosecutors, over 30 SHOs, dozens of SPs, DIGs, DGPs, and five changes of government in Rajasthan. The Ajmer police always suspected that more than 100 teens were exploited but only 17 victims recorded their statements during the primary investigation. Most of them eventually turned hostile.
The case has moved from the district court to the Rajasthan High Court, Supreme Court, Fast Track Court, Women Atrocities Court, and is currently in Ajmer’s POCSO court.