When Nirbhaya, a physiotherapy student was gang-raped and brutalised by six men in a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012 and later died, it created such a groundswell of public outrage that national laws changed and national public consciousness was altered forever. The victim came to be known as Nirbhaya; the fearless and India’s Nirbhaya movement became a significant watershed in the history of a nation. Two similarly brutal rape cases – of Kathua (J&K) and Unnao (UP) that point to brutal and hideously perverted minds of the perpetrators as well as the flagrant misuse of authority seem to have precipitated India’s second Nirbhaya movement.
The incidence occurred in June 2017. A minor girl from Unnao district in Uttar Pradesh was allegedly raped first by BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar on 4 June, and later abducted on 11 June and gang-raped by his brother and others for several days. Between June of last year and April 2018, the minor girl and her family tried several times to file an FIR with the police who, however, refused to register a complaint against the powerful accused. The whole matter came to light when the minor girl tried to commit suicide outside the residence of UP CM Yogi Adityanath on 8 April 2018.
An alleged fight broke out between the families of the accused MLA and that of the gang-rape survivor. The girl’s father was arrested based on a complaint filed by the MLA’s representatives (though the complaint about the same incident filed by the girl’s family was not acted upon). On 9 April, the girl’s father had sustained injuries to his abdomen, legs and several other places (the postmortem showed 14 injuries) and he died in police custody, in hospital from blood poisoning resulting from colon perforation.
The MLA has denied the rape charge. The impunity of the Unnao accused and the swagger with which he has been roaming free has shocked and angered people. In this short video he dismisses the grave charges leveled against him and his associates by calling his accusers ‘nimn star ke log’ or low class people. As late as 12'th April, he was seen outside the office of the UP CM, a wide smile streched on his face. The public outrage that followed, has resulted in the matter being handed over to the CBI and the MLA finally being charged on three counts. He was taken into custody during the early hours of 13th April.
In Kathua, close to Jammu in Jammu & Kashmir, an 8-year-old girl went missing from near her home on 10 January 2018. On 12 January, her father lodged a missing person's report stating that his daughter had been missing since the 10th. The body of the missing child was found one week after she went missing in the forests. There were evidences of repeated rape, sedation, strangulation and bludgeoning with a stone.
According to the chargesheet filed, the child was sedated and kept confined in temple premises or Devsthan run by the principal accused, where she was raped repeatedly over several days. She was finally strangulated and then bludgeoned twice with a stone to ensure that she had died, before her body was dumped in the forest. Eight people were allegedly involved, led by Sanji Ram who is said to have hatched the plan, his nephew and son, a friend as well as four police personnel: a head constable, a sub-inspector and two special police offers. The chargesheet also speaks about a message sent to Vishal, the son of Sanji Ram, to come to Kathua “if he wanted to satisfy his lust”. The policemen were supposed to destroy evidence in exchange of bribes amounting to 1.5 lakhs. The alleged motivation behind this remorseless, sadistic crime was to remove the nomadic Muslim Bakarwal community from the Rassana village region.
In a completely bizarre and inexplicable twist in this matter, an outfit called Hindu Ekta Manch (backed by Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga, two cabinet ministers of J&K from the BJP) was set up in support of the accused men. On 9 April, lawyers of the state bar tried to prevent a chargesheet being filed in this matter. A bandh was observed in Jammu, again to protest the arrest of the accused (not to demand justice for the dead brutlised child) and people carrying the national flag and uttering nationalistic slogans marched in support of the accused. As if the details of the horrific rape did not turn people's stomach, supoort for the accused seemed doubly horrific.
Notwithstanding the strange, presumably politically-motivated reactions of some people, there has been nationwide outrage. There is disgust and a seething anger amongst people against the men who commit rape, murder, felony and unimaginable acts of barbarism. Given the political slant to these cases, there is the feeling that this is a vital moment in the history of a nation grappling with its own conscience. It ought to be another Nirbhaya moment for India no doubt; also a moment of profound soul-searching that seems to reveal some grim and exceedingly unattractive qualities of ourselves as a nation. But will it?
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