This is a special series in support of the global #RingTheBell campaign to end violence against women. This guest post is written by Savie Karnel - A Bangalore based journalist. She has been a reporter with The New Indian Express and Mid Day. She is currently principal correspondent at Talk magazine.
It was the night of Holi in 2009. I was on night duty and was visiting hospitals and police stations to collect news as a reporter with a newspaper. It was 3 am. So the photojournalist and I decided to check on Bowring Hospital in Shivajinagar.
There was no crowd or relatives gathered that night, not even a jeep with policemen. Looking at the deserted look, we thought no criminal or accident cases were referred to the hospital that night. Before leaving we casually asked the guard, if there was any case. He whispered, “There’s a rape.” We asked, “Where?” He pointed to a woman with a child in her arms.
She was running to various departments for the necessary medical check-ups. Her husband, an auto driver was accompanying her. She went in again and he waited in his auto. We asked him what happened, and he broke down. “How could they? She is just three years old,” he sobbed.
The child was playing outside, the father was at work and the mother was in the kitchen. After about an hour, the child returned home crying. She was bleeding. When the mother asked the people around, they said they had seen the child going into a neighbour’s house. Four men, who worked in a mattress making shop, lived there. They had celebrated Holi and were drunk. They first lured the child in and then raped her.
The auto driver took his wife and child to the police station. A constable accompanied the family in their auto to get the child’s medico-legal examination done. The couple had no one else even to provide moral support.
“We had a love marriage. Since we belong to different castes, our families have ostracized us. Nobody talks to us,” the father told us. The neighbours sympathized, but didn’t want to get involved in a police case. The rapists had fled.
The mother came out with the child and waited for the constable to finish the formalities with the hospital. All tears seemed to have dried in their eyes. They had cried enough. The mother knew she had to stand strong. The child’s head was on her mother’s shoulder. She wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t even crying. She simply stared. My colleague offered her an orange. She took it without any hesitation. The innocent soul could still trust anyone. There was no smile. She continued to look with blank eyes.
I wondered what was going behind those eyes. What was she thinking? Did she realise what had happened to her? Was her body hurting so much that she couldn’t move a muscle? Did she want revenge, or did she simply want to go home and sleep?
The family with the constable drove off in the auto. That morning, the newspaper I worked for carried the story. There were no protests or candle light marches. The family didn’t get any help. The TV channels didn’t follow it up. After all, it was just another routine crime story. Things like these keep happening. Only few make it to the headlines.
Couple of months later the police tracked the four rapists in Mumbai. They had found a new job and were living guilt-free. They were arrested and brought to Bangalore.
Some neighbours had seen the child going inside the house where she was raped. What if they had stopped her? What if they had informed her mother immediately? What if they had followed the child into the house to see what was happening? What if they had simply knocked the door or rung the bell?
Perhaps, the child would not have been harmed.
If you would like to contribute a guest post as part of the #RingTheBell campaign, please email us at hello@wooplr.com.
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