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Why I Hoped She Was Strangled Before the Torture, After the Rape

On 13 July, a 15-year-old was gang-raped, tortured and murdered by three rapists in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra. 

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A set of recent incidents involving gruesome rapes of women across the country has yet again raised several questions about Indian society and judiciary. We at The Quint believe that a rape survivor’s life doesn’t end when she is raped. And that even if our institutions - the law, the judiciary, the hospitals - are failing a rape survivor, we as a society need to step up. And keep the fight going as a part of our #KeepFighting campaign.

On a scale of non-journalists to ten, I would say I’m quite numb to the grotesqueness of news and the hopelessness that comes with it.

A truck on a killing rampage, a homophobic massacre of club-goers, the piling bodies in South Sudan and of course, the daily count of rapes, murders, thefts, assaults and riots which all Indian news platforms are sprinkled with.

But every now and then, an event completely shakes me to my very bones, leaving me feeling furiously despondent, as though I might burst at my very seams.

On Wednesday, 13 July, a 15-year-old girl was gang-raped, tortured and strangled in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, while on her way back from her grandparents’ house. She had been sent to pick up some masala her grandmother had kept separately. The route she had to take was not an isolated or secluded one by any means; it was simply less significant.

Three rapists were sitting under a tree nearby, drinking to celebrate the purchase of a new motorcycle.

Police reports narrow it down to somewhere between 6:45 PM and 7:30 PM.

They raped her, in turns and sometimes, together.

Medical reports indicate they tore out her flesh from her genitals and other parts of her body, pulled out her hair, smashed her teeth, dislocated her shoulders from her arms and broke her hands.

They strangled her to death after raping her.

Her naked, mutilated body was found under the tree later.

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On 13 July, a 15-year-old was gang-raped, tortured and murdered by three rapists in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra. 
Reading about the crime, as a woman, felt like being forcefully made to stand and watch from a few steps away from the crime scene. Invisible, unable to act. Representational image used. (Photo: iStockphoto)

I couldn’t think. I was overcome with rage, white rage. I felt unbeatable, like I could and I would find those three rapists and lodge a bullet between their eyes. No, I wanted, for them, death by a thousand cuts. But I also felt so unsafe in my own body, so very scared for myself because of myself.

I remember the first thought I had.
I hope they strangled her first.

And then, because of this inexplicable loop thing our brains can do, it made me think about what had just been my first thought at knowing about a girl who had been treated as less than vermin, for no reasons other to satisfy the sick, twisted, repulsive and insecure masculinities of three rapists, who were probably just going through mid-week blues.

It felt like a strong thud to the back, the kind that leaves you gasping for breath. Despondency slowly creeped in, between breaths.

How can we fight this? What is it that we’re up against? It’s not just about sex. The rape would have explained that. It’s more than just a violent fetish for power. The rape and the murder would have explained that. But, how, just how do I battle a patriarchy so rotten, so depraved that the best I can hope for that girl is that maybe, just maybe, they strangled her first?

They didn’t.

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On 13 July, a 15-year-old was gang-raped, tortured and murdered by three rapists in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra. 
A rape case in India isn’t just that. It never just that. It’s about her caste and their castes, and who they know higher up and what the higher-ups have to win. It’s not enough that her body was mutilated; how many votes can a gruesome murder win? Representational image used. (Photo Courtesy: Twitter/Women Under Siege)

I read on.

Reports said her grandfather went looking for her when she didn’t return home. He found her bleeding to death. Friends and family rushed her to the nearest medical facility, where she was declared dead on arrival.

A loud, blinding silence surrounded me.

Dead. Another one, gone. Scratched, mutilated, violated, ripped apart with vicious sadism.

My brain was working overtime by now. I was hungry for details, out of anger, out of fear, out of feeling that I was obligated to consume the pieces of this news so as to prevent it from drowning out in the noise of the happenings of the world.

I read further.

The police believed they showed “departmental sensitivity” by “fast-tracking” the arrests of the three accused, a hundred and twenty hours after the crime had been committed. The locals, however, have been claiming that four rapists were responsible for committing the crime. So now, the police have announced they are looking for more rapists who could have potentially been involved in this crime.

I could feel the anger bubbling. I was unable to make allowances for even a little bit of police lethargy. No. Not this time. Please, not this time.

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Then, came the last blow, the last kick when I was already down. More of the articles were about the “political slugfest” that had just began, than about the crime itself. Every single article mentioned that this would be a big deal given that the Monsoon Session was beginning. It would give the opposition ammunition, the reports implied.

By this time, I was screaming inside my head.
Don’t you dare bring your dirty politics into this.This is dark and murky enough without you making this all about your messed up idea of ambition. Keep it away, and stay the hell away.

Leader of Opposition demanded the Chief Minister’s resignation. Some ministers went and visited the family, press convoys and all. The CM promised strict punishment, and expressed his disgust. The Opposition boycotted their precious little tea party before the session began, before they began their unending, self-serving verbal diarrhea about “fast-tracking” the case, about the evident casteist undertones about which they care so deeply, about how they can make all this maniacal madness stop- if only we vote them to power.

Just one more time; this time, they promise.

By this time, I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. Discontinued, pessimistic flashes of what was about to come appeared before my eyes.

They were going to pimp her rape and murder out for votes and money. Even the saddest excuse for justice in the best fast-track court in India would take at least a year.The rape was going to be forgotten. By ISIS, by civic by-polls, by vegetable vendors’ strikes, by politicians’ protests about “failing law and order”.

By a thousand other rapes. In the same state. In the same year. Year after year.

Perhaps, it is futile to explain what it feels like, as a woman, as me, to read vivid and vicious details of a crime so sinister, that it makes the most law-abiding citizen rebel for the rope. But something good came out of it. At the end of recollecting all my thoughts about this event that had suddenly shaken me out of the comfort of repression, I became suddenly aware of the lingering thought at the end of it all.

Maybe this time, it’ll work. Maybe this time we’ll fight hard enough, long enough. Maybe this time, they’ll do something about it.

Maybe this is the case that’ll pull out the rotten pieces of our collective conscience.


I went to bed, silently chiding myself for hoping her death would make this world better place. But not for her.

(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)

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Topics:  Maharashtra   Gang Rape   Dalit 

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