‘Babloo iske purse mein se mobile nikal ke switch off kar pehle. Fir muh band kar saali ka!’ (Search her purse for her mobile and switch it off first. Then shut her damn mouth!) the guy on the seat next to the driver shouted.
His command was immediately followed. The guy on the left quickly searched her purse, switched off her mobile and took all the cash he could find. He then threw it behind the seat. Rupali could only watch as the other guy had his hand pressed on her mouth. The tight grip he had on her face and the stink of his dirty hand nearly made her choke. Rupali continued to struggle but she was fast losing this battle of strength.
The van was now speeding on a straight road. It seemed like it was heading out of the city. The guy next to the driver was giving the directions. At one point he called someone up from his mobile and updated the person about his location as well as the status of things.
When all her energy had drained out, Rupali closed her eyes. Noticing that she’d stopped struggling, the guy who was holding her loosened his grip. With that, Rupali’s thoughts became clearer. She began to wonder who these people were and what they wanted from her.
She used the opportunity the loose grip provided her and asked in a panting broken voice, ‘Kaun hain aap log?’ (Who are you?)
No one replied. So she repeated her question.
‘Yeh jaanna tere liye zaroori nahi hai,’ (That’s none of your business) the other guy on the back seat announced angrily.
Rupali became restless. She reached out to the guys on the front seat and pleaded, ‘But why have you picked me up? You could have been mistaken!’
Hearing that, the guy next to the driver turned around. He switched on the overhead light in the vehicle to show his face, ‘It’s you who had made the mistake of messing with Mahajan,’ he said coldly and showed her his mobile on which he had her photograph.
A chill ran down Rupali’s spine. So she really had been kidnapped by these goons!
She stared at the man—he had a long bearded face with large eyes that almost popped out of his head. A huge red tika ran down his wheatish forehead. He had long hair and wore an earring in his right ear. His eyes were bloodshot and his breath had the pungent smell of cheap alcohol. He stared back at Rupali and grinned, scaring the hell out of her. He then raised his hand and passed on a quarter bottle of alcohol to his companions at the back. Then he switched off the light.
Rupali’s breath was caught in her throat as she sat scared shit.
‘Wha . . . wha . . . What are you . . . huh . . . huh . . . going to do?’ she stammered. Then she began to sob loudly, ‘Please, I beg you, let me go . . . please . . .’
‘Shut up,’ said the man in front. They ignored her pleading and continued to drink.
Taking advantage of their momentary lack of attention, Rupali bit at the wrist of the guy who had his arms around her body. The guy screamed in pain. Rupali didn’t release his hand till he loosened his hold. Then she threw herself over the other man in an attempt to reach for the windowpane.
It appeared as if she had gained some energy in the past few minutes and that now she was utilizing it to the fullest possible extent. She hit her forehead against the window, attempting to break the glass. She shouted hard, praying that someone outside would hear her.
The other guy tried to pull her back. He held her by the neck. Rupali resisted and shrieked her lungs out. She kicked and shoved the other guy. Every limb, every muscle of her body moved in protest.
But unfortunately, Rupali’s struggle didn’t last for too long. All of it led to nothing. Her screams were buried under the volume of the music that the driver in the front had increased. Outside those tinted glasses, the road stretched and stretched—there was no one around on that dead cold night.
Another scream escaped from her throat before she collapsed into tears. She was scared and shaking. What could she do now? Was anybody looking for her? Did Arjun know?
‘Where are you, Rupali?’ Arjun was thinking aloud. He had arrived a bit late, expecting Rupali to be angry with him, but had found no one. He checked his mobile to see if there was a message. Then he called on Rupali’s cellphone thinking that she might have gone back to the hostel—it was switched off.
‘Come on Rupali, call me!’ he said desperately and tried her number again.
‘Shut up! Just shut up!’ the guy on the front seat screamed. When Rupali didn’t stop, the guy next to her held her hair in his fist and pulled her with a jerk. The impact was such that Rupali’s entire body got pulled back and the back of her head collided with the other side of the van. Rupali screamed.
When, a few seconds later, she didn’t stop shrieking, the guy lost his cool. He slapped her brutally. It stunned Rupali. He slapped her again. And again. And again. And again. And then again. Poor Rupali could not even bring her hands up to her face to protect herself. They were still tied behind her back.
Rupali felt her face go numb and blood spilled out of her lips. What she did not know was that her lips and her right eye were swollen. All she could feel was pain, intense pain. ‘Where are you, Arjun? Why can’t you find me? Please come and take me away . . .’ she pleaded silently.
Having spent a considerable amount of time trying and failing to call Rupali on her phone, Arjun finally reached her hostel. Never before had Rupali made him wait. Not for this long. If anything, she would call him up and update him. And she would’ve never switched off her phone. She always kept it charged and ready in case her family called.
At her hostel, Arjun somehow managed to get hold of Saloni. He believed Saloni would know Rupali’s whereabouts. But just like Arjun, Saloni too didn’t have any clue.
‘But she should be with you. She left the hostel about an hour and a half back,’ she said.
Arjun hit his fist on his bike in frustration. He was seriously worried now. He knew how infamous the city was. A young girl—alone—walking in the dark—phone switched off, they were not good signs.
‘Did she take an auto?’ he asked, something suddenly striking him.
‘There wasn’t any auto here at that time. I stepped out along with her as I was heading towards the basketball court. Not sure if she would have taken one from the next circle. But my best guess is she won’t take an auto from the next circle because from there it’s walkable,’ Saloni responded worriedly.
She too had called on Rupali’s number several times. She directed Arjun to follow the route she knew Rupali had taken.
Something wasn’t quite right, Arjun’s senses told him repeatedly. He felt restless, as if something bad was going to happen, as if there was something he needed to do.
‘I will follow the same road and look for her. Meanwhile, you please call up your common friends who might have any knowledge of her whereabouts. If you get any news call me.’
‘Yes, I will. And if you find her, immediately call me back.’
The van stopped at what appeared to be an abandoned building on the outskirts of Delhi. It was a mill that had shut down many years back. Wild bushes stood tall amid the broken concrete structures. Creepers ran over the layer of foundation stones and at places clung to the walls. There was dead silence. The moonlight faintly illuminated the place. There was no other source of light. The place looked haunted.
Two of the men stepped out of the vehicle and walked around to take stock of the place, while the person next to Rupali sat holding her mouth. They were drunk, but they’d remembered to be cautious. The two who had gone for a recce came back and nodded.
The men had gone to choose a preferred corner of the mill. They zeroed in on the other side, where a renovation work was left in the middle. A partially built structure with only foundation walls rose till knee length and the pillars in the four corners rose upwards. At the top end of the columns, iron rods crept out and were left uncovered. Apart from a pile of concrete and a stack of bricks, there was heap of sand, which caught their attention. They verified that no other human was present at the site.
Rupali’s h
eart pounded in her chest but her weak body could not support her. Her head was hurting badly. The continuous torture and the fear that something dreadful was going to happen had made her mouth go dry. She was thirsty.
The man next to her tugged at her to get her to move. The door had been opened. When Rupali tried to resist, he again caught her by her hair and pulled her along. Her feet were dragged through the uneven ground. At one point, she fell down on her knees. She cried in pain and begged the men to leave her. She fell down on their feet and requested for mercy. She reminded them of their mothers and sisters back at home. But then she was pleading to heartless men. Worse, they were drunk, as well. The man they called Babloo kicked her hand, caught her by her right arm and dragged her on. Rupali’s dupatta got stuck in a bush as her body continued to get dragged away from it. She kept crying. She kept begging.
At the site, the man threw Rupali on a mountain of sand and stuffed her mouth with a thick dirty cloth. That’s when her heart sank and her mind went blank with fear.
She heard them talk softly with each other. Then their leader, the one who had been directing everything, stood above Rupali. He took a big swig of alcohol while he stared at Rupali. There was a stony blankness in his eyes, as if he had no feelings. Something within Rupali died at that very moment.
Bhaiyaji pushed himself inside Rupali. Rupali’s eyes split wide open in a flash. Her lifeless body throbbed for a fraction of a second. She screamed and gave voice to her unbearable agony.
Over Bhaiyaji’s shoulder, Rupali stared into the moonlit quiet vast black and white sky. Perhaps, there was a God beyond that infinite sky who was looking at her in that moment. Looking at her and still doing nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And every time her body felt a thrust it burrowed further into the sand. And every time that happened, tiny gravels of sand rolled down the pile. Rupali’s motionless eyes continued to look into the infinite sky, but only for a brief period after which she turned unconscious.
And then it began. It was all a blur—her clothes being torn off, the excruciating pain, the scream dying in her throat, her choking, the pain growing, the faces changing but the pain still being there—and then her fainting and regaining consciousness. Again and again and yet again. Till there was nothing left of her except a bleeding body and a vacant stare.
The sweat from their forehead fell over Rupali’s eyes and her lips. Sand clung on to her hair and the sides of her body. In between her thighs, a patch of sand got soaked in blood. It was her blood. It didn’t matter to the savages blinded by lust and overpowered by alcohol. They continued to tear her apart.
A beautiful innocent soul had been torn apart. The one who had always stood for the right thing had been badly wronged.
Arjun stood alone on the road when his phone rang. It was Saloni.
‘Any news of Rupali, Arjun?’ she was sobbing.
‘No,’ he sighed.
Behind him were his friends who had returned after searching in every possible direction. All of them had been stunned into silence.
In front of him the road stretched into the distance.
‘Where are you, my love?’ he sighed exasperatedly into the dark night. The silence surrounding them was dreadful.
Twenty-Five
Twenty-four hours later . . .
‘The patient was brought in unconscious. The initial tests have confirmed rape. Plus she had gruesome injuries. The idea was to leave her unrecognizable so she wouldn’t be able to give a statement if she survived.
‘She had a fractured skull and sustained severe head injuries that led to blood clotting in her brain. It appeared she had been hit on the head by either a brick or something heavy. There is also a possibility that someone smashed an alcohol bottle over her head. Looks like the men who raped her had been drinking. After raping her they tried to kill her. Under the influence of alcohol they wouldn’t have been able to make out if she was dead or not. Either way, they left her to die.
‘She hadn’t succumbed to her injuries. But she couldn’t be called alive either. The barbarity of the crime has shocked us. The patient suffered very deep cuts on her left breast and both her thighs. This led to significant blood loss from her body. But worst of all were the cuts on and around her private parts that have been disfigured beyond imagination. It appears they stabbed her more than once there.
‘As part of the first surgery, several tiny pieces of glass have been pulled out of her private parts. More surgeries may be performed, but only when her condition stabilizes.
‘In addition, one more round of surgery has been performed to treat her head injury. So far, the patient hasn’t responded to it. Even after sixteen hours, her condition is unstable and very critical. The patient continues to be unconscious and nothing can be said unless she regains consciousness. On two occasions, for a couple of seconds, her body showed some movements in distress. Those were a result of the trauma that her brain continues to be in. Three units of blood have already been transfused and two more units are scheduled for the day.’
That’s all the team of doctors had to say. After the brief from the medical team that had gathered for the press conference was over, it was the turn of the police commissioner of Delhi to update the media on the progress of the case.
‘A few men from the slum near where this crime took place happened to discover the victim when they were trying to take a shortcut to their homes. Seeing her, they immediately called 100. An FIR was lodged on the very night the victim was brought to the hospital. Prima facie it’s a case of rape and attempt to murder. No eyewitness has turned up so far. But the same men who called us told us about seeing a white van speeding away on the road nearby, moments before they stepped inside the dilapidated building. They said it was the only vehicle on that abandoned road and the driver was driving rashly.
‘During our initial investigation, one boy talked about having seen a white van, around the time of the girl’s disappearance, suddenly stopping on the roads of North Campus and pulling a girl in. From a distance, he could not notice the vehicle number. He couldn’t even confirm if that was a prank or an actual abduction. This is the same road where the victim was supposedly on as per her close friends.
‘Right now, CCTV footage in and around North Campus is being scanned to trace this white van. There is a strong chance that this van is the same as the one the slum dwellers had seen. The moment the registration number of this vehicle is obtained, there won’t be any delay in nabbing the perpetrators of this crime.’
The team of doctors at AIIMS and the Delhi police took some questions from the media that had gathered, after which the press conference got adjourned.
In the next few hours, the brutal and heinous gang rape of a DU girl had become breaking news in the national media. And in those stories, Rupali, who was still a living being, lost her identity.
In the medical vocabulary she became a patient.
In the terminology of law and order she became a victim. In the language of the media, she was a rape survivor.
And unfortunately for a large part of India, she had become impure; an impurity that could not be undone by any means. A stigma was now attached, embedded in her and had become a part of her existence. Even though she had never wanted it. Even though she had resisted it. Unfortunately, she would have to live with it—if she survived. And so that the extent of her ignominy could be minimized, she was robbed of her own identity, of her real name in those media stories.
The horror of this monstrous crime caught people’s attention. It shook their conscience in a way that they not only condemned it, but also wanted to do something about it. It made their blood boil in a manner that had never happened in the past. It invited outrage from across the country. It made way for a million voices that further led to an uproar across the length and breadth of the country. People questioned the law and order in the country and especially in the national capital. There were angry discussions on what the society had become. And then there were prayers
for the girl who was struggling between life and death.
Download provided by sam@IBD
42 HOURS LATER . . .
The outrage against the crime continued to grow. So much so, that it spilled on to the streets. Students whose lives Rupali had been a part of—Tenzing and his music club members, Saloni and her batch of friends, Arjun’s political group, and Raheema—had all come together to mobilize the crowd. They were angry and their anger took over the whole college and then the university, and then slowly consumed the city.
The scene was similar at each and every epicentre of protest. The gathering at the vast space in front of Rashtrapati Bhavan was the biggest of all, seeing which the Rapid Action Force (RAF) had been installed next to the state police. From tear gas pistols to water cannons, the law and order machinery had prepared itself to deal with the situation at hand.
A gathering of thousands at this one place was a sight to behold. Every single sound, be it the frequent voices over the hundreds of walkie-talkies in the hands of cops, the centralized loudspeaker installed over the RAF’s Vajr van, or the news journalists reporting live, all of it added to the chaos. But the one sound that dominated and suppressed every other was the thumping hum of the crowd.
It remained undefeated.
Traffic that evening had come to a complete standstill. On a few key roads that led to the epicentres of the protest, the only vehicles allowed to enter were either the media vans or the police patrols. Everything else was in a deadlock.
Then came the moment when the much-anticipated occurrence happened.
It rained. Heavily.
Large drops that were powerful enough to disperse the crowd, to make people run away from the open streets and seek the nearest shelter, fell in sheets. The scene became even bleaker. Yet it wasn’t able to break the newfound will of this nation’s youth standing united for a cause. How could a spell of rain break those who’d already prepared themselves to face the monstrous water cannons?
Your Dreams Are Mine Now Page 19
