Delhi – It has been 75 years since the country became independent, but some things have not still changed. Casteism is the biggest example of this. Even though people may make big claims of its demise, the ground reality is different.

What is the whole issue?

The latest case is of Sunita (name changed) from Gurgaon, Delhi. The one who fell in love and had an inter-caste marriage but whose in-laws never accepted her. And as if this was not enough, after her brother-in-law raped her, the in-laws put the blame on her.

Sunita lives in Gurgaon with her husband and five-year-old daughter. She tells The Mooknayak that last year (January 2021) her brother-in-law came from Deoria and stayed with them for a few days. During this time, one day, the brother-in-law took a video of Sunitataking her bath, and this was the start of his long abuse of her.

Allegation of rape after the threat of making video viral

Sunita further explains, "Using the threat of [posting] that video, my brother-in-law continued to rape me. During this time, my husband made arrangements for him to live elsewhere. But this did not stop him from abusing me. When he saw that his brother was not at home, he used to come over."

Sunita tells The Mooknayak that her brother-in-law used to threaten her repeatedly after raping her. He used to say, "If she talks about it to anyone, he will make the video viral."

This situation went on for a long time. Sunita says that her in-laws already did not like her as she was a Dalit. And after that, this experience completely broke her. She gradually started falling prey to depression (tension).

"Even after eight years of marriage, my in-laws did not eat food cooked by my hands. Whenever the in-laws came, they used to cook their food themselves or stay with some other relatives and go to meet their son." She says that my in-laws never accepted me as a daughter-in-law. They always used to call me a Sadakchhap [streetwalker/loose woman].

She says this time too when my brother-in-law came, he stayed with us for a few days. After that, my husband found another room. He [my brother-in-law] went to live there, and during this time, he came to our house every day. This went on for several days. And not only this, he used to threaten me repeatedly on the phone. During this time, one day in the month of September my husband was going through all the chats on my phone, and once again the push to prove that I was a bad woman started.

The secret revealed through the mobile chats

Sitting next to Sunita, her husband Sumit (name changed) explains to The Mooknayak that, after reading the chat, my brain stopped working. "After reading the chat, I, first of all, told my family members about the matter. But they were not ready to accept it. On the contrary, they only kept blaming Sunita. They said that she (Sunita) first enticed you and now she is also enticing your brother," he tells us.

The couple's allegations against the police

Sumittells us that, after all these things, we tried to take legal recourse. But there too we only found disillusionment. Even after going several times to the women's police station in Gurgaon over almost six months, our FIR was not lodged. In the end, we resorted to social media and the media, and only after that was our FIR registered.

"The attitude of the police is such that I could never even have imagined. After all that happened, I went many times to the women's police station in Gurgaon to lodge my complaint. But they would keep sending me away, saying come today, come tomorrow. Finally, in the month of January, IO Parveen of the Mahila Thana advised me to go to UP. The IO said that since your brother-in-law lives in UP and Yogiraj prevails there, your hearing will happen quickly," Sunita sadly narrates her pain on the attitude of the police.

Sunita then says, "I went to UP and stayed there for ten days. But the attitude of my in-laws towards me remained the same. At the behest of the police, I was given a room and a gas stove. But there to no one who supported me. [Well] because! The rape happened in Gurgaon, so the FIR could not be registered there, and I returned dejected. After coming back from there, I once again started going to the police station. During this time, some people made a fake Facebook ID of me and started writing all kinds of false things about me. And on top of this, some people from my in-laws' family would call me to insult and threaten me."

Sunita says that when I started to get very disturbed with all these things, I turned to social media for support. I narrated my ordeal to the people. Still, the police did not cooperate.

FIR lodged after much trouble

On the other hand, Gurgaon Mahila Thana IO Parveen informed The Mooknayak regarding the matter, "Sunita has signed an affidavit that she has not been raped, then on what basis should we lodge an FIR." Refuting this claim, husband Sumit says that when the FIR was only not registered, then how would the investigation have been done and from where would the affidavit have come, and when the police are saying that the rape has not happened then why was the investigation not done. All these claims are false. Two days after this conversation, when Sunita and her husband once again went to the police for help, an FIR was registered in the matter.

Regarding the FIR not being registered, Sunita says, "My in-laws are Rajputs. They have political clout. Due to this, my FIR was not being lodged. After what happened [with me], the police was also siding with the in-laws."

After a long struggle, Sunita was able to get the FIR lodged. But there are many such women who do not even tell anyone they have been raped.

What do the statistics say about such incidents?

According to NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) data, crimes against women have increased by 7.5% since 2010. About 87 women are raped here every day. According to the criminal records of the year 2020, 28,046 cases of rape were registered. In which the highest number was in Rajasthan, where 5,310 cases were registered. In second place was UP, where2,796 cases had been reported. Apart from this, 3,741 such cases had also been registered where an attempt to rape had been reported, and in which 294 of the victims were minors.