December 16 - "Mummy main jaldi aa jaoongi ( I'll be back soon)":Nirbhaya (gang rape)
For Nirbhaya's family, the fight is still on
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NEW DELHI: The words, "Mummy main jaldi aa jaoongi ( I'll be back soon)", ring in the ears of a mother whose 23-year-old daughter's pain stirred the conscience of a nation.
Nirbhaya, who was brutally gang raped on a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, succumbed to her injuries at a hospital in Singapore on December 29. A year has passed but her mother still holds on to that last memory of her daughter - the words she spoke as she stepped out of home.
It was 4pm on a Sunday when the physiotherapy intern stepped out of home saying she will be back soon. She never returned. A year later on December 15-also a Sunday, the parents are preparing for a public meeting scheduled for Monday-the date that has come to be associated with their daughter.
While they wait for the guilty to be punished, the family has created Nirbhaya Trust. The father says it will aim to help survivors of violence. The route to justice has been tortuous and wounds refuse to heal. "I don't think I have slept well since December 16. The memories still haunt," says Nirbhaya's mother who has been keeping unwell.
Nirbhaya's parents have closely followed the hearings in the trial court absorbing every argument of the lawyers. Now the matter is in high court as the convicts have appealed against the death sentence they have been handed.
"Jab tak nyay nahin hoga tabtak aisi ghatnayein kaise rookengi (If justice is not delivered how can we expect such incidents to stop)?" asks Nirbhaya's mother. "My daughter was full of life and a pillar of strength for me, my husband and her two younger brothers. If I fell sick, she would fill in for me," she shares.
She points out that Nirbhaya could not tolerate lies and always reached out to help people in distress but that when it was she who required assistance, no one came forward. "If she found anyone among her friends in trouble, she would raise her voice on their behalf. But there was no one to help her when she was in need. Koibhi nahin aaya uski madad ke liye (No one came to her aid)," she says.
"I shudder to think of the pain my daughter endured," her father, who sits on a chair by his wife in their two bedroom accommodation, says. The family has moved in a few months ago leaving the small tenement where she grew up behind. Her photograph now rests in a small altar inside their house.
Nirbhaya had completed her physiotherapy course and was hoping to get a job at a government hospital when she died. Her father, a cargo loader at the airport, says they used all their earnings to educate the children. Nirbhaya's youngest brother, a Class XI student, remembers how his sister helped his elder brother, who is now in an engineering college, and him with studies.
Nirbhaya's family will not rest till the four men who brutalized her are hanged. Soon after the death sentence was pronounced, her father had said he is conscious of being alive for the first time in nine months. Her mother said their fight will continue till the sentences are carried out.
The family also wants the 18-year-old, who was handed a three-year sentence under Juvenile Justice Act, punished at par with the others. "What we have lost can never be recompensed. But the culprits must be hanged as a deterrent to such crimes," the mother said.
She could never study due to poverty but she tried to give her daughter the best education and the freedom to pursue her dreams. But now she says that women always get a raw deal. "If families don't educate their daughters and marry them off when they are underage, they become victims of domestic violence. When people like us try and break the barriers and educate our daughters to stand up for themselves so that they can live on their own terms, a brutal society does not spare them. We don't have a choice," she says.
A year on, forgotten victims of December 16 still waiting for justice
NEW
DELHI: Nirbhaya's brutal gang rape on this date exactly a year ago led
to an upsurge that jolted the country. But there were others too, who
suffered abuse on that fateful night. Their cases never attracted
attention and their prospects of getting justice appear extremely bleak.
Barely nine, Raju was sodomized and thrashed on December 16, 2012. When he didn't come home even after dark, his mother went looking for him in the forest that overlooks an upscale locality in Vasant Vihar. He was found unconscious and profusely bleeding.
Razia is in her early 20s and lives in a slum in New Seemapuri. Her house doesn't have a toilet. Around 10pm on December 16, she had stepped out to answer nature's call. Trouble was waiting for her. A man tried to force himself upon her, and only stopped because a group of children arrived on the spot. Around the same time elsewhere, Nirbhaya was trying to fend off her attackers in a chartered bus.
"The Nirbhaya case took away all the attention. My son was also raped, but the media never came to our place, though the spot where it happened was not even a kilometre away from the Munirka bus stand," said Raju's mother. They live in a JJ cluster in Vasant Vihar's Kusumpur Pahri.
Raju continues to be traumatized by the incident. He has lost a lot of weight, keeps to himself most of the time, and doesn't go to the forest anymore. That day, he had gone to the forest to play with his buddies after school. That's when he met Ravi, who had come to feed his pigs. "He first asked me my name and family's details while stroking my back. He asked me if I would like to feed the pigs with him. He then asked me to take off my pants as there will be water and it was already getting cold," said Raju. What followed is something Raju desperately wants to forget.
Razia, too, is still living the ordeal. "We went to the nearby police station the next day to file a complaint. I had to repeat the incident five times to different officers, giving every detail," she recalled.
They were sent back with a promise that the case would be probed, but nothing was given in writing. "We were told that it's not really rape but molestation," she said.
After two days, police turned up at the slum cluster and asked Razia to identify the accused publicly. Fearing persecution, the family decided to drop all charges and move on. That's when they realized that moving on was difficult, especially with everyone around them talking about Razia as a 'rape victim'. Razia doesn't step out of her home much, while her attacker — a father of three— roams freely in the neighbourhood. The family has been contemplating shifting to Seelampur, but poverty has been holding them back. "Who will marry her now?" her ragpicker father wonders.
Similarly, Ravi, who was charged under article 377, is now out on bail and the matter is pending in court. "We thought that the law is more stringent now. But even the people have taken him back. Three days ago, our paths crossed and he kept staring at me. Now, I don't allow Raju to go out and play," Raju's mother says.
(All names have been changed to protect identities of survivors)
Barely nine, Raju was sodomized and thrashed on December 16, 2012. When he didn't come home even after dark, his mother went looking for him in the forest that overlooks an upscale locality in Vasant Vihar. He was found unconscious and profusely bleeding.
Razia is in her early 20s and lives in a slum in New Seemapuri. Her house doesn't have a toilet. Around 10pm on December 16, she had stepped out to answer nature's call. Trouble was waiting for her. A man tried to force himself upon her, and only stopped because a group of children arrived on the spot. Around the same time elsewhere, Nirbhaya was trying to fend off her attackers in a chartered bus.
"The Nirbhaya case took away all the attention. My son was also raped, but the media never came to our place, though the spot where it happened was not even a kilometre away from the Munirka bus stand," said Raju's mother. They live in a JJ cluster in Vasant Vihar's Kusumpur Pahri.
Raju continues to be traumatized by the incident. He has lost a lot of weight, keeps to himself most of the time, and doesn't go to the forest anymore. That day, he had gone to the forest to play with his buddies after school. That's when he met Ravi, who had come to feed his pigs. "He first asked me my name and family's details while stroking my back. He asked me if I would like to feed the pigs with him. He then asked me to take off my pants as there will be water and it was already getting cold," said Raju. What followed is something Raju desperately wants to forget.
Razia, too, is still living the ordeal. "We went to the nearby police station the next day to file a complaint. I had to repeat the incident five times to different officers, giving every detail," she recalled.
They were sent back with a promise that the case would be probed, but nothing was given in writing. "We were told that it's not really rape but molestation," she said.
After two days, police turned up at the slum cluster and asked Razia to identify the accused publicly. Fearing persecution, the family decided to drop all charges and move on. That's when they realized that moving on was difficult, especially with everyone around them talking about Razia as a 'rape victim'. Razia doesn't step out of her home much, while her attacker — a father of three— roams freely in the neighbourhood. The family has been contemplating shifting to Seelampur, but poverty has been holding them back. "Who will marry her now?" her ragpicker father wonders.
Similarly, Ravi, who was charged under article 377, is now out on bail and the matter is pending in court. "We thought that the law is more stringent now. But even the people have taken him back. Three days ago, our paths crossed and he kept staring at me. Now, I don't allow Raju to go out and play," Raju's mother says.
(All names have been changed to protect identities of survivors)
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