Police fight for the victim in court, but beyond that, all the support is for the accused. The fight of the victim is the victim’s alone.
This verdict has come after our patient fight of so many years. But the fight for justice for Nirbhaya is still not over. A lot now depends on how soon the death penalty verdict is sent by the government to the nation’s president, and when he will sign on the papers.
I hope the hanging file moves really fast. I hope these rapists don’t go and join the long line of people waiting to be hanged. This is important because India doesn’t have just these four rapists. There are thousands of rapists all over the country who are either out or are in jails taking advantage of the slow judicial process. So, how fast the government and the president’s office now move will send a message to everybody. It will be an important lesson, a deterrent for rapists and for those who possess the rape mindset.
My family and I fought for my daughter Jyoti, along with the rest of the country. But the fight on the street was very different from the fight in the courts. Our judiciary moves as slow as it always does, no matter how big, grave and horrific the crime is. Victims have to follow rules, regulations and processes. We just have to wait while the rapists have the luxury of going for so many appeals. What choice did I have except to wait helplessly and keep my faith alive?
But the judiciary’s slow progress, even in a case like my daughter Jyoti’s, has only made the fight of so many other vulnerable women more difficult. Because, even this most-watched and most-awaited case suffered unexplainable delays. The rapists had so many avenues to avoid conviction.
Victims and their families don’t have any rights. We sit quietly in court, we cannot say anything. In fact, I could not even enter the court to hear the arguments. All I knew was that the police were fighting for us but didn’t know how they were fighting. I used to sit outside in the park and wait for the lawyer to come out and brief me. So, I became party to the case and sought the court’s permission to sit inside in June 2016.
Even after I got in, I would just sit, I would not say a word. I would listen for hours. There were some things I understood, some I did not.
But I learnt a lot from the court process. I now support several victims and offer them legal help and advice whenever they seek. My biggest advice is that if you are part of a family where a member has been raped, please support the woman. Do not question her. Insist on registering a police case. Make sure you pursue the case to its logical end. Families often bury the case in silence and sit quietly because they feel a sense of shame, but remember that this only strengthens the rapists and those who have a rape mindset. Every time a family chooses not to pursue the rape case, other women are indirectly made more vulnerable.
The police fight for the victim in court. But beyond that, all the support is for the accused. The fight of the victim is the victim’s alone. The accused are jailed and they get their food and medicines at the state’s expense, they get security when they come from the prison to the court and return. But nobody ever asks the victim’s family how they will reach the court, what their troubles are.
Even after this verdict, I feel vulnerable. I still don’t know the face of that minor rapist, and he is roaming free. He is amidst us. The fear is still there. I don’t know if he has reformed in the correction home. I know that he was taken care of like a child. But I have my doubts if he would be a changed man today, he would be in his early 20s now.
There are people who don’t support the death penalty. They say that these rapists deserve another chance. That is just politics.
I just want to ask the people who consider death penalty wrong this: Is it not wrong that a group of men brutally rape a young woman, pull her organs out and kill her? By saying that these men should be kept alive, are you trying to prove that our society is reformed?
Instead of death penalty, these people say that Nirbhaya’s rapists should get life terms in jail. We all know how that works. They keep getting out of prison for short duration under some excuse or the other — taking care of their families, attending a family wedding, and getting medical treatment. Is this punishment?
Some people even quote statistics to say that hanging does not deter rape. How many rapists have been hanged in all these years? We are only hanging the ‘rarest of rare’ cases, and that too those who have inflicted visible wounds – like assassinations and terror. What about those who have inflicted wounds, which are not visible?
When I think of what they did to my daughter, I wish there was something worse than death penalty for them. Burn them alive in public, maybe.
As told to ThePrint