# In Ut­tar Pradesh, a woman, who told the po­lice and the court that she was raped, later said she was not raped.
# In Chandi­garh, a woman, who told the po­lice and the court that she was raped, later said she was not raped.
In Ut­tar Pradesh, the ac­cused are sent to jail for 20 years.
In Chandi­garh, the ac­cused is let off by the court.
A Tale Of Two Cities & Jus­tice: Ei­ther she was raped, or she just fell off a bi­cy­cle – What do you think re­ally hap­pened? Read this sting­ing ac­count by Sr Jour­nal­ist SP Singh, jux­ta­pos­ing the two cases. It in­volves peo­ple you know: the son of a gov­er­nor, a sit­ting MLA, the House of a for­mer Pun­jab chief min­is­ter, and the con­spir­a­to­r­ial si­lences of top Akali & Con­gress lead­er­ship.

This the sec­ond week of this month of Au­gust, in Ut­tar Pradesh, a Bareilly court de­liv­ered a judge­ment. It should make peo­ple in Pun­jab very, very an­gry, and it should fill all of us with a feel­ing of grate­ful­ness that we still have such judges in the sys­tem. But you should know the facts first. In fact, two sets of facts.

A woman was raped.
She told the po­lice she was raped.
She stuck to her ac­cu­sa­tion.
But at one stage, she turned hos­tile.
She said she was never raped.
The judge saw through the de­cep­tion.
Notwith­stand­ing the wom­an’s changed ver­sion of events, he has sent the three men ac­cused of rap­ing the woman to spend 20 years in jail.

The judge also did the next most log­i­cal thing: he ruled that the sur­vivor be charged un­der Sec­tion 344 of the CrPC (giv­ing false ev­i­dence).

You can de­bate the last part.

– She could be a poor woman who the guilty might have bought off with a huge sum of money, or a sum of money that might have seemed huge to the woman. Many wealthy men and women have done worse things for money in life.

– She could be a has­sled woman whose trou­bles would have only in­creased man­i­fold af­ter she ac­cused mul­ti­ple strong men of as­sault­ing, rap­ing her. She could be liv­ing un­der mas­sive threats. We have a non-ex­is­tent sys­tem of vic­tim/​wit­ness pro­tec­tion, and the dice is of­ten and in­vari­ably loaded against the vic­tims. Need we add that we all live in a highly pa­tri­ar­chal so­ci­ety where even the well-heeled women need some real guts to come out and name their preda­tors. So
one can un­der­stand if, at some stage, she just caved in and turned hos­tile. She has to live in the same house, walk the same street, work for peo­ple who are sim­i­larly sit­u­ated as her tor­men­tors were. For you and me, she is just a head­line in one day’s edi­tion of a news­pa­per. For her, it is the only world she can in­habit.

BUT more im­por­tantly, the judge­ment, in this case, should re­mind the peo­ple of a sim­i­lar case in Pun­jab, one that hit the head­lines, and was then buried un­der the de­bris of shame­ful head­lines and our col­lec­tive cor­rupted con­science. So, let me re­mind you of the sec­ond set of facts:

A woman was as­saulted and raped. She – a masseuse pro­vid­ing her ser­vices at the house of the son of a for­mer chief min­is­ter of Pun­jab – bleed­ing af­ter the as­sault and rape landed up at a hos­pi­tal.

At the Sec­tor 16 Govt Hos­pi­tal in Chandi­garh, this frail woman was cry­ing, “Sa­heb raped me,” she was telling every­one. Mon­soons were on. There was a driz­zle out­side. She was shak­ing, but her story did not fal­ter as she told one af­ter the other per­son the vivid de­tails.

At the Sec­tor 16 Govt Hos­pi­tal in Chandi­garh, this frail woman was cry­ing, “Sa­heb raped me,” she was telling every­one. Mon­soons were on. There was a driz­zle out­side. She was shak­ing, but her story did not fal­ter as she told one af­ter the other per­son the vivid de­tails. The “Sa­heb” was the son of a for­mer chief min­is­ter who, at the time of the al­leged rape, was the Gov­er­nor of a south­ern In­dian state. Also, “Sa­heb” was an MLA. A big-time, up­com­ing youth leader with im­pec­ca­ble cre­den­tials —well-read, dad a gov­er­nor and an au­thor, mom also a politi­cian.

The wom­an’s state­ments were recorded. Every­thing was in writ­ing. The woman stuck to her ver­sions of the events. Elec­tions to the state As­sem­bly were five months away. “Sa­heb” was an MLA of the party in Op­po­si­tion. His fa­ther had been a close col­league of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. It was go­ing to be a do or die bat­tle. The ca­reers of Amarinder Singh and Parkash Singh Badal were at stake.

This was 2006. But the si­lence was deaf­en­ing. An FIR was reg­is­tered, but no one was try­ing to take any po­lit­i­cal ad­van­tage. Have you watched the movie – The Si­lence of the Wolves? Well, it played out in pub­lic view and ran house full. We all watched it for weeks, un­fold­ing on the front pages of news­pa­pers, then mov­ing in­side, and fi­nally van­ish­ing into the re­cesses of mem­ory where our shame lives.

The deep In­dian state was too com­mit­ted to the gov­er­nor and saw him as a man who served its in­ter­ests at a time when no one in the com­mu­nity would have done it such favours. At one stage, he was ex­com­mu­ni­cated by the Akal Takht, and pun­ished in a most hu­mil­i­at­ing man­ner —tied to a pole with a rope and a plaque slung around his neck that de­clared that he was guilty.

But politi­cians re­mained mum. No one de­manded his res­ig­na­tion. No one de­clared that he or she will stand by the woman who had been as­saulted and raped.

But the woman stuck to her ver­sion of events. The de­tails matched. There were no loose ends.

“Sa­heb” was ar­rested. Sec­tion 376 of Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Code. RAPE.

The woman gave state­ments. In­ves­ti­ga­tions pro­ceeded.

Imag­ine the pres­sures that must have been brought on to the sleuths, the cops, the
pros­e­cu­tion! Or per­haps you are such a nice per­son that you think why would any­one try to pres­surise the cops or the pros­e­cu­tion! (We have a very spe­cial love for such in­no­cence. I ac­tu­ally have a word for such in­no­cent peo­ple, but it is not very print­able!)

Fa­ther – The gov­er­nor of a ma­jor and po­lit­i­cally im­por­tant state; Mom a politico.
Son – An MLA who had once led a team of armed, ap­par­ently very re­li­gious men, to take over the Akal Takht with sheer force.
An In­dian state that was in­debted to the dad.
The state ma­chin­ery that knew that the MLA son ad­dresses both, the CM and the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, as “Un­cle ji.”

And still, the case was too bla­tant. “An open and shut case.” was how po­lice of­fi­cials were de­scrib­ing the case to the jour­nal­ists. It is ex­actly what the jour­nal­ists were writ­ing in their re­ports. Those re­ports are still very much avail­able to ca­sual google-searchers.

Fi­nally, the in­ves­ti­ga­tors did not have any op­tion but to state what was so bla­tantly clear. So, in the court, the pros­e­cu­tion pre­sented its case. A 100-page charge sheet. The vic­tim’s state­ment. The med­ical re­ports. The DNA re­port. The opin­ion of the med­ical board. The re­ports of the CFSL, the Cen­tral Foren­sic Sci­ence Lab.  And a long lineup of wit­nesses.

Fi­nally, the in­ves­ti­ga­tors did not have any op­tion but to state what was so bla­tantly clear. So, in the court, the pros­e­cu­tion pre­sented its case. A 100-page charge sheet. The vic­tim’s state­ment. The med­ical re­ports. The DNA re­port. The opin­ion of the med­ical board. The re­ports of the CFSL, the Cen­tral Foren­sic Sci­ence Lab.  And a long lineup of wit­nesses.

Jour­nal­ists de­clared the MLA’s ca­reer was over. Daddy kuchh nahi kar paye. Un­cles ji bhee kaam na aaye.

And then, sud­denly, from nowhere, a bi­cy­cle ran into the story.

No one had seen this bi­cy­cle. In fact, peo­ple did not even ask if it was a sporty red one or a ple­beian black one. All I re­mem­ber is that that en­tire case got tram­pled un­der the wheels of this bi­cy­cle.

Aaj tak nahi pata chala ke woh kam­bakht bi­cy­cle chala kaun raha tha, woh sadak kaun si thi, mehla foot­path par kyon nahi thi, cy­cle wale ne ghanti maari thi ke nahi… BAS WOH CY­CLE AAYA
AUR KISSA SAB TAMAAM HUYA!!!

It was a very win­try De­cem­ber that year, the kind in which hands, feet and senses go numb. Well, I am not sure about hand and feet, but I did see senses sud­denly go­ing numb in news­rooms.

In the court, the woman told the judge that she had had a slight prob­lem with her mem­ory re­call.

She said “Sa­heb” had not raped her.
In fact, “Sa­heb” never as­saulted her.
In fact, what had re­ally hap­pened was that she had fallen from a bi­cy­cle.
In fact, such was the fall that she had started bleed­ing.
In fact, the “Sa­heb” was so kind that when he saw her bleed­ing, he made sure that she was rushed to the hos­pi­tal.
In fact, that’s how she had landed at that Sec­tor 16 Govt Hos­pi­tal that rainy day back dur­ing the mon­soons.

The pros­e­cu­tion said she had signed the state­ment in which she had nar­rated the en­tire in­ci­dent. There was no men­tion of any bi­cy­cle in that state­ment.

The de­fen­dant said the state­ment must have been taken through co­er­cion or forged.

The woman said she did not know what she was sign­ing.

The pros­e­cu­tion said it had video­taped the en­tire process.

BUT WHO WAS IN­TER­ESTED?
The rul­ing party in Pun­jab was not in­ter­ested.
The op­po­si­tion party in Pun­jab was not in­ter­ested.
The gov­er­nor sahib with the flow­ing white beard was not in­ter­ested.
And the woman was not in­ter­ested.

The judge could no more be of any help. Af­ter all, the vic­tim was no more the vic­tim. There was no rape. So, “Sa­heb” walked free. His white kurta re­flect­ing the eter­nal sun­shine of the spot­less ca­reer in pol­i­tics.

AR­REY BHAI, JAB COURT KA FAISLA AA GAYA HAI TO AAP KYON SHOR DAAL RAHE HAIN?

The in­tre­pid re­porters in some news­pa­pers’ news­room cried hoarse. They said they will fol­low it through. They said they will find out the truth.

But the ed­i­tors were not in­ter­ested.

AR­REY BHAI, JAB COURT KA FAISLA AA GAYA HAI TO AAP KYON SHOR DAAL RAHE HAIN?

The woman went on to live her life.
“Sa­heb” went on to be­come the gen­eral sec­re­tary of his pan­thic party, a re­li­gious siropa around his neck and a sword in his hand.

Every­one was pre­sent when gov­er­nor sahib died.
The en­tire po­lit­i­cal spec­trum paid rich trib­utes to gov­er­nor sahib and peo­ple hugged and con­soled “Sa­heb.”

The in­tre­pid re­porters grit­ted their teeth.
The ed­i­tors re­mem­bered the great con­tri­bu­tion of gov­er­nor sahib to peace.

And I am still search­ing for that bi­cy­cle!

If only I knew what it looked like — An At­las? A Her­cules? An Avon? A Hero?

If only judges could be fa­mous for the ver­dicts they de­liv­ered.

You do not re­call the name of that judge who set “Sa­heb” free.

That is why it is im­por­tant to re­mem­ber the name of the judge in Ut­tar Pradesh who sent three men to jail for 20 years each, for rap­ing a woman who later said she was not raped at all.

He is Ad­di­tional Dis­trict and Ses­sions Judge, Bareilly.

In his judge­ment, the Bareilly judge dwelt upon sev­eral cases and Law Com­mis­sion ob­ser­va­tions on why wit­nesses turn hos­tile, ex­plained how ‘threat and in­tim­i­da­tion are among key rea­sons wit­nesses turn hos­tile in sex­ual of­fence cases against women in In­dia, un­der­stood how dif­fi­cult it was for a poor widow in rural In­di­a’s bad­lands to muster sup­port, how there could be no one stand­ing by her, and how easy it was for the ac­cused to pres­sure her into back­ing off.’

The name of the judge is Nir­dosh Ku­mar.

Some­times, it is very dif­fi­cult to live up to one’s name. Thank you, Judge, for do­ing that.

AAP KYA KYA BHOOL GAYE, AUR KAUN KAISE NIR­DOSH SAABIT HUYA, SAB YAAD RAKHA JAYEGA.

There is a cy­cle in a news cy­cle. It will keep com­ing back to haunt you, Sa­heb! Just as it will keep cel­e­brat­ing a real “Nir­dosh” – Judge Nir­dosh Ku­mar!

SP Singh is a se­nior jour­nal­ist af­flicted with a weird hip­pocam­pus dis­ease wherein stale news re­ports are pe­cu­liarly in­dexed to res­onate with break­ing news.