Jottings - Slice of life - 280 ( A brutal rape, the police procedural that followed, and “The Delhi crime” - a Netflix crime series.)

Jottings - Slice of life - 280 ( A brutal rape, the police procedural that followed, and “The Delhi crime” - a Netflix crime series.)

On the sixteenth of December 2012, on a cold and hazy weekend evening in Delhi - the crowded capital of India - a rape was committed, that unsettled, horrified and paralyzed the moral conscience of a conservative nation. The repercussions of that single night, and the story that subsequently unfolded would forever change the course of legal treatment of rape, and the punishment for those who commit bodily heinous crimes against women. On that fateful winter evening, a young girl of twenty-three, returning from a movie (ironically, a life-affirming movie “Life of PI”) with her boyfriend was brutalized in a moving bus by six young men present in the vehicle. In a male-dominated society such as India, rape against women is not an uncommon assault. It happens frequently and in various shapes and forms. In most cases, such violations remain unreported due to the stigma attached to the act. But in Jyoti’s case, there was no need for anyone to report. She was found on the side of a road of a normally busy underpass in no-man’s land. Police patrols, who arrived at the scene based on pedestrian reports, spent some time debating and owning jurisdiction before they thought it wise to call the South Delhi division. When officers from South Delhi division arrived, in response to the emergency call, they found the naked and bleeding body of Jyoti, carelessly flung over the side of the road, bleeding, crumpled, distraught and moaning with physical pain. Little did the policemen realize the extent of the damage on the girl, or the insanity of the act committed on her. They immediately dispersed the crowd, carried the collapsing girl and her injured boyfriend to the nearby Government hospital. Jyoti was profusely bleeding hip down, and by the time the police reached Safdarjung hospital, she was unconscious. The two officers who accompanied Jyoti in the police van had a vague sense that this was not a usual rape. They didn’t know why, but there was something eerie and wrong about it. The officers were right in their premonition.

The true extent of the crime and the physical condition of the girl they brought in would trigger an unending nightmare for the Delhi police force and the nation at large. As hours passed, and the doctors diagnosed and unfathomed the trajectory of the injuries, they were aghast and numbed. The bodily condition of Jyoti revealed a horrible picture. The violations on her body, the sheer animosity of the act that could have caused such inhuman mutilation of womanhood, was something the doctors attending to Jyoti were appalled to behold and treat. And within the next few days, an entire nation would hear, cringe and cry with Jyoti as she oscillated between life and death, holding on precariously to the last shreds of her young and promising life, before giving it up twelve days later. The shocked country would rise in unison against the outrage, and demand instant death penalty for the rapists, and in the next few years, the painful death of Jyoti would catalyze the rewriting of archaic laws on rape and punishment. But for Jyoti, and her parents, a painful price was extracted without ever a chance of recompense, reconciliation or closure.

The six men who committed the violent rape belong to the economically and socially underprivileged sections of Indian society. Nearly, seventy-five years of independence hasn’t managed to create a strong bulwark of social institutions capable of raising the common living denominator of Indians. The financial and cultural disparities between different sections of society are only increasing with each passing day. Especially, in the urban towns of India which have seen phenomenal growth in middle and higher income groups, mass migrations from villages to the Metros, triggered by the lure of city-life, fill the vacant spaces of the city as slums, and most of the young blooded males who come in to such cities pick up menial jobs to sustain themselves. It is the pride of working in a “city” that is foremost in their minds; and it doesn’t matter what the nature of the work is, as long as they can feed themselves, enjoy the thrill of living among the elite, and be spectators, or sometimes participate, in the numerous diversions cities can offer. With no prospect of upward mobility, lack of educational opportunities and a deep-seated inferiority complex, many of these young migrants soon develop a sense of restlessness, and in many cases turn repressively violent. In addition to this, the constant bombardment of the senses by what they see others enjoying, but cannot indulge in themselves, only fuels the growing discontent within. Such frustration only exacerbates the psychic dichotomy that lies dormant within.

It was a bunch of six such people who were in command of that private bus, Jyoti and her boyfriend Awindra boarded that late evening. When the couple settled down in the front row, it wouldn’t have stuck Jyoti and Awindra as odd at all that that they were the only passengers in the bus. Delhi, After all, is a brave city, and young couples are used to traveling alone in the nights. When Ram Singh ( the main accused) observed the urban-bred Awindra cuddling closely with Jyoti, anger fueled by the fire of lust, envy and pent up frustration erupted in him and spread to the others in the group. All of them were drunk, and they only needed a nudge, a push down the precipice to act on their wild impulses. In the darkness of the night, drowned by the droning sound of the engine, driving along the city roads where pedestrians and others are either indifferent to the shouts emanating from the bus or preoccupied in their thoughts, six men, one after another brutalized Jyoti in a manner inconceivable to a sane human mind. To call what they did as rape is an understatement; it was an act that violated the very premise of being human. They desecrated the young body of Jyoti with all the virulent hatred they possessed. For forty-five minutes, with the screams of the girl bellowing out of the bus but reaching none around, the drunken men ripped her body apart in the literal sense of the word. What remained of Jyoti when they dumped her body on the roadside was only a sterile physical form writhing in unimaginable pain, devoid of any respect and dignity. Nothing more need be said.

In seven days time, the Delhi Police under the command of Chaya Sharma, the then DCP of south Delhi, grabbed all six perpetrators hiding in different corners of the city and the country. She led a team of Inspectors and sub-inspectors who knew the way around the Indian criminal system. Given the gravity of the crime and the absorption of the country in the savage details of the act,, not many people realized during that stressful period the stupendous job of the police in cracking this case, that had so quickly gained national and international attention and media time. Political and civilian pressure to nab the culprits and mete out justice was intense, and police leads were often misleading and elusive, but IPS officer Chaya Sharma let her policing instincts rule over emotional sentiments. The police had virtually nothing to go by. Through scant and hazy camera footage collected from the Hotels along the road where Jyoti was found, along with sketchy descriptions shared by Jyoti’s boyfriend ( who miraculously or some would say suspiciously got away with very minor injuries) Chaya’s team was smart enough to identify the white bus in which the crime was committed. With that single lead, police would nab Ram Singh - the principal brain behind the savagery. Ram would commit suicide in custody within months, but within a day of his arrest, through careful interrogation, the police were able to connect the dots and orchestrate the arrest of all the remaining rapists, among whom was a minor boy not yet eighteen. The political and civilian pressure on Delhi police was enormous, and the public wished to draw blood instantly. Despite the pressures from different quarters, mounting civil unrest and dire aspersions cast on the ineptitude of the police force, Chaya and her team did their job with alacrity and precision within a system that isn’t exactly co-operative or transparent.

It has been seven years, since the tragic rape and death of Jyoti. A lot of positive changes have happened in the intervening years in amending the process of law for rape victims, and legislating sterner measures for rapists. There is now in India a more acute awareness of the consequences of rape. Though, the rate of rape hasn’t plummeted ( it has increased year on year), at least there is the hope of shifter recompense to the victims and their aggrieved families if that is any consolation to anyone. It is time someone spoke for the Police too. The story of how the Delhi police managed to locate and arrest the six culprits in incredibly quick time, is something that is not widely known or acknowledged. The new crime series on Netflix “The Delhi crime” attempts to do that. The seven-episode mini-series brilliantly captures the details of the police work that led to the conviction of the rapists. In recent times, among the hundreds of movies and serials on the quality of policing in India, none does more justice to the acumen, professionalism, work ethics, their travails, handicaps and above all the conditions under which Indian Police work, than “Delhi crime”. In my radar, this mini-series is the best police procedural drama I have seen. Richie Mehta, an avant-garde filmmaker researched the case for seven years. In an interview, Richie says: “ He was amazed with the precision with which this case was solved, and so quickly”. The smart police work, the ups and downs during the frantic search, deserved a deeper and elaborate treatment than a mere feature film of two hours. Hence Richie decided to direct a mini-series. The theme of the project was not to delve on the gory details of the rape, which constantly remains as a shadow throughout all the episodes, but focused on portraying the smart persistence of the Delhi police, against all odds, with the singular goal of solving the crime. It is not the glorified police procedurals fed these days ( especially the Western ones) with well dressed and articulate officers, with access to elaborate databases at the touch of a key, and an intimidating team of prosecutors assisting the officers on the case. It's quite the opposite. “Delhi crime” demystifies police work in the Indian context. Frame by frame, Richie, explores the ground realities of what it means to work in a system where police stations do not have sufficient budgets to pay for electric bills, inspectors and lower cadre officers are disgruntled and not respected enough in society unless they are from the Indian police service, or how the stations are so under-equipped that it becomes difficult to conduct day to day business, or the sheer poverty in the lives of the guardians of law themselves.

I watched with pride all the seven episodes. Some of it may have been fictional. But it doesn’t matter. What is important is to know that despite all the obstacles and inconveniences of poorly managed police system, there was during the Nirbhaya case, a team of five officers who rose above all the hurdles and bought the culprits to justice in no time. To them, we owe our gratitude. In the capture of the six rapists, they bought the country to rethink the laws on rape. Even if one of them had escaped, and remained untraceable, we would have cut a sorry face in the international arena and utterly ashamed of ourselves, and who knows, Jyoti’s case may have never seen the legal closure it eventually did.

if you have a subscription to Netflix at home, request every Indian to watch this series. It is worth the time.

God bless…

yours in mortality,

Bala