A brutal gang rape in India revives painful memories of 2012 Delhi assault
Thirteen years after the gang rape of an Indian woman on a bus in the capital Delhi made global headlines, a new case approaching the brutality inflicted on a woman from the northern state of Bihar has been reported.
Campaigners say her story is also one of the indifference from police and health authorities that women subjected to sexual assault routinely face in India, especially in small towns and villages.
Warning: This story contains details that some readers may find disturbing.
Indian law prohibits naming victims of sexual assault, so we will call the survivor Soma (not her real name).
The 28-year-old mother of four young children told BBC Hindi that she was attacked in her own home and gang-raped by a group of men who allegedly inserted objects into her vagina.
The incident took place on the night of June 11 in a village of Begusarai, officially recognized as one of the most socially and economically backward districts in India.
The case gained national attention after hospital officials confirmed that she had been attacked with objects removed by doctors. He also brought a bullet casing, which he said was one of the items used.
Explaining the details of the terrible attack, Soma said that while he was in the toilet outside his one-room house at night, five men burst in. The toilet has no door, just a curtain hung over it to provide privacy.
“They undressed me, gagged me and tied my hands. When I tried to resist, they cut my chest with a knife and raped me,” she added.
Her husband said he initially dismissed her moans as sounds made by a stray cat, but later became suspicious and tried to control them.
“But the house was locked from the outside. She called a neighbor, who came and opened the door and everyone saw my situation and started crying.”
The survivor’s home had only an open-air bathroom with a cloth curtain; was attacked there [Shahnawaz Ahmad]
Begusarai police chief Maneesh (who uses only one name) told the BBC that Soma’s “medical report confirmed sexual assault”.
“There are 3 names and 2 unidentified defendants in this case. We arrested two of them. The Special Investigation Team (SIT), formed regarding the incident, is raiding to catch the others, and the investigation continues.”
Police said some of the accused had committed crimes before and they had approached the gang rape departments against them.
Soma said he received little help from police or health officials the night of the horrific attack.
The husband, an e-rickshaw driver, reportedly took his unconscious wife to a police station about 3 km away from their home. He said the police refused to press charges and sent them away, advising him to take him to a doctor instead.
Begusarai police said police station head Rajiv Kumar was suspended due to “negligence, indifference and insensitivity”. An FIR (First Information Report) regarding the incident was registered at the local police station on June 13, they said.
Since the attack, Soma and her husband say she, too, has struggled to receive necessary medical attention.
On the night of the attack, a nearby private clinic reportedly turned him away, saying it did not handle emergencies and had no doctor on duty. He was then taken to a state-run community health center where he was given first aid before being transferred to a district hospital.
The survivor and his family lived in their one-room house [Shahnawaz Ahmad]
Soma told the BBC that the initial treatment he received in hospital was far from satisfactory.
After he regained consciousness on June 12, he told his wife and the doctor who treated him about the gangrape incident. “While the doctor was giving me an injection, he asked, ‘Were you raped too?’ he asked. “I kept telling her, ‘Yes ma’am, I was,'” he said.
However, Begusarai Civil Surgeon Ashok Kumar told the BBC that the woman was brought in complaining of stomach pain. And he said that the gang was only reported to them on June 13, after which “doctors immediately conducted a medical examination.”
Her husband told the BBC that the hospital sent Soma home, but he was taken back to hospital the next day after losing consciousness. He was discharged again a day later.
“The village midwife, who examined her after she constantly fainted and complained of severe abdominal pain, warned her that there was something in her body. On the morning of June 18, Soma showed us the bullet casing coming out of her vagina.”
“It was an empty cartridge or bullet casing,” Civil Surgeon Kumar said. “We re-examined him and doctors removed other objects from him. He is currently in a stable condition and is recovering.”
Soma’s case sparked outrage in India and has been compared to the horrific gang rape and subsequent death of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in Delhi in 2012, in which she was pelted with objects.
Investigations into sexual crimes have increased in India since the gang rape on a bus in Delhi in 2012. [Getty Images]
The crime sparked global outrage, mass protests across India and led to tougher anti-rape laws, including the death penalty in serious cases. Four people were found guilty applied In 2020, one person died in prison and one juvenile offender was released after serving time in a correctional center.
But despite increased scrutiny on sexual crimes since then, more than 30,000 cases of rape are recorded every year in India.
“We haven’t learned any lessons,” says anti-rape campaigner Yogita Bhayana, adding that most cases go unreported or unnoticed because society has become desensitized to extreme brutality.
Speaking to the BBC, the woman said, “Such cases continue to occur because the message that rape can bring them the death penalty has not reached every corner of India. Fear has not been instilled in the society.”
“The media attention on Soma’s case is only because of reports that he had received a bullet in his private parts. At least he survived and I see that as a positive,” says Bhayana.
In Begusarai, Soma lies in a hospital bed and is frequently disturbed by visits from journalists, politicians and social workers. He is still in great pain but hopes to recover and return to his children soon.
“I am very worried about my children, they are very young. Our relatives in the village, about 35 km away from here, are taking care of them. I want to return home to them as soon as possible.”
