Capital crime: Woman raped, paraded by neighbours in east Delhi
East delhi gang rape victim was living in fear since stalker died by suicide family
In an incident that has sent shock waves across the Capital, the accused filmed the whole gamut of demeaning and criminal acts on their cellphones. For nearly an hour, barely 50 metres from the local police booth in east Delhi’s Kasturba Nagar that was unmanned at that time, the woman was subjected to torture in full public view.
The motive for the crime, police said, was personal enmity -- the family held the woman responsible for the death by suicide of one of their kin, a 16-year-old boy whose advances were rebuffed by the woman.
As more than half-a-dozen video clips of the crime surfaced on social media, attracting criticism and anger from political leaders including chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Delhi residents, the Shahdara district police registered a case under 12 different sections of Indian Penal Code. These include gang rape, abduction, molestation, physical assault, wrongful confinement and criminal conspiracy. Of the 11 accused, seven women were arrested and two minor boys, aged 15 and 17 were apprehended by the police till Thursday evening. Raids were on to nab two other men from the family who were also allegedly involved in the crime, police said
They are all family members and relatives of a 16-year-old boy who allegedly killed himself on railway tracks in east Delhi in November last year. The teenager was stalking the 21-year-old woman living in his neighbourhood, who is married and has a child. His family members blamed the woman for his death. They committed the crime to take revenge on her,” said deputy commissioner of police (Shahdara) R Sathiyasundaram, quoting the statements of the victim and the arrested women.
The woman’s family said that they were receiving threats and abuses from the teenager’s family since his death.
Things had reached an extent that the woman stopped visiting her parent‘s home, and also shifted to a rented home in Karkardooma with her husband and two-year-old child. Except her 17-year-old sister and her uncle, who is visually impaired, nobody else knew her new address.
CM Kejriwal called the incident “shameful”, and urged the Union government to direct Delhi Police to take strict action against the culprits. “This is very shameful. How did the criminals get so much courage? I urge the Union home minister and the Lieutenant Governor (LG) to instruct the police to take strict action, pay attention to the law and order situation. Delhiites will not tolerate such heinous crime and criminals at any cost,” Kejriwal said on Twitter on Thursday.
What happened on Wednesday
The woman’s 17-year-old sister, who is the prime witness in the case, said that around 11.30am, she left home to deliver some wheat at her sister’s house. As the girl reached there on an e-rickshaw, and called her sister out, 11 people who were following her in a car, an auto-rickshaw, and two-wheelers, rushed out. They had brought her uncle along, after threatening to kill him with if he did not tell them his niece’s new address, the girl said.
"As my sister came out with her child, they overpowered her, and snatched her child. When I tried to stop them, they assaulted me and snatched my cellphone so I could not inform the police. I somehow took the child from them. They grabbed my sister, bundled her in the three-wheeler, and left. I followed them back to our neighbourhood, which is nearly 2km from the abduction spot. They took my sister inside their house locked themselves,” the girl added.
Around half an hour later, the girl said, the abductors pulled the woman out with her hair chopped and face blackened. They paraded her in the nearby lanes for another half an hour after putting a garland of footwear around her neck. The girl said that she borrowed the mobile phone of a neighbour, and informed the police.
Before that call, however, the woman’s husband had already informed the police about her abduction, after their landlord had called him frantically to tell him about what happened. The woman’s family members alleged that the police reached too late. However, police contended that their team got to the spot within four minutes of the first call.
“After receiving the calls, our police team immediately reached there and rescued the woman. She was removed from the place. The suspects locked the house and fled. Four of them were caught in the evening while two were arrested on Thursday,” added DCP Sathiyasundaram.
In one of the videos circulating on social media, the woman is seen pleading with folded hands while a woman is cutting her hair with a razor and scissors. In another video, she is seen standing among a crowd with her face blackened. She is taken inside the room and made to sit on a cot, while some women pose for shots with her. One woman is also seen holding a currency note and humiliating the victim.
In a third video, a man and a boy are seen mercilessly assaulting the woman with objects which looks like sticks and a belt. It is alleged by the victim’s family that the two and another sexually assaulted and raped the woman in front of their women family members inside the room.
HT is withholding the names of the arrested women since they live a few metres away from the victim’s parental home, and information about them could reveal her identity.
Victim being counselled
Police said they have kept the survivor in a “safehouse” with trained counsellors who are helping her overcome the shock and trauma of the crime. Her statement before a magistrate was recorded on Thursday afternoon, the DCP said.
Police said that a majority of the arrested and absconding suspects are involved in illegal sale of liquor, and have previously been booked in the past under the Excise Act. The husband of one arrested woman is registered as a “bad character” (habitual offender) with the local police station. The criminal history of the suspects was the reason nobody from the neighbourhood informed the police about the crime even as they witnessed the horrific scenes playing out in full public view, police said.
Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) Swati Maliwal said the panel has issued a notice to the police. “A 20-year-old girl was gang-raped by illegal liquor sellers in Kasturba Nagar. Her head was tonsured and black paint put on her face and then she was paraded in the streets wearing a garland of slippers. I am issuing notice to Delhi Police. All the accused men and women should be arrested and the girl and her family should be given security,” Maliwal tweeted while sharing the video.
Rajat Mitra, a clinical psychologist, said he has never heard such a horrific incident in his 25 years of work with police and other organisations. “I have heard it happening in remote villages and smaller towns. But it’s for the first time that it has happened in a city like Delhi. What is also very poignant and shocking is that nobody (in the neighbourhood) protested against it.”
Terming it a signature crime, Mitra said that in the present case the sexual assault was not the main goal but shaming the woman and humiliating her was the main objective of the “perpetrators”.
“That shaming and humiliation is what we call a signature crime. When perpetrators sexually assault a woman in order to humiliate her in public. The sense of a city where there is safety is slowly giving away to a kangaroo court culture,” he added.
