No one lit candles for them. Or marched on Goa’s streetsscreaming, “We want justice”. They gaveup on Goa’s police and perhaps gave in to a system where the rapists were notunknown bus conductors or drivers but their own family. We searched for them ortheir stories not because we wanted to tell another story of Goa’s insensitivepolice. This was to hold a mirror to ourselves.
Case 1: When 30 year old Bhanu (name changed) was admittedto Institute of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour at Bambolim with case ofwithdrawals and depression, little did the doctors realise that it wasn’t herhusband in the Gulf that she was missing. The mother of three had beenrepeatedly raped by her father in law back in Uttar Pradesh. But her ordeal didnot end there. For six months, her family shuttled between Agassaim, Old Goa,Panjim and Porvorim Police Stations as no policeman would believe her case. Hercomplaint was registered only after the Goa State Women’s Commissionintervened. But the case went more bizarre. Goa Police did not send the case toUP Police for verification of the scene of crime as required. It was with theintervention of National Commission for Women that the case was sent to UP andthe case registered.
One and a half years later the status of her case is unknownas Bhanu has disappeared, allegedly kidnapped. Her thumb impressions, with arequest to withdraw her complaint, have surfaced at Panjim Police Station.
Move over Delhi, Goa can be worse in its sensitivity tohandle cases of outrage against women. In a state where police act as pimps forprostitutes and peddle drugs better than the junkies, the sensitivities ofhandling a victim of sexual abuse is absent. “The way they go about clueless ofthe sensitivity of handling a victim after she has been outraged and then startsettling matters between victim and her violator is pathetic”, surmisesBailancho Saad’s Sabina Martins.
Case 2: When the sixteen year old girl from a capital basedschool was raped on the pretext of helping her grades by her arts teacherKanhaiya Naik, the police preferred to play a good Samaritan albeit anundesired one. The minor was made to sit in a police station where curiouspeople kept on filing past. The case of jurisdiction and under which provisionsof the law should her case be taken up became a subject of debate. Intensepolitical pressure was evident as the police first registered the heinous crimeas a normal assault then under severe public outcry first as rape and then as arape of minor. The police unofficially even conveyed to the parents that themarried teacher was willing to patch up and everything would be fine. Theteacher was sent to jail but when he came out the trauma was so much for theteenager that she committed suicide. The case looks as good as closed.
“Remember that famous molestation case where Goa’s top cophad said after the molestation that the victim did not have two fingers in hervagina to the media? In little Goa, everybody seems to know anybody and with aninsensitive police a victim gets as mentally tortured by them as physicallytortured by the rapist”, explains Savera Trust’s Tara Kerkar.
Case 3: When Tanya (name changed) eloped and married herbeloved who was two years younger in Sawantwadi, life was supposed to be a bedof roses. Days after her marriage, her father in law took her husband and herto the temple. Since there was one motorcycle between three of them, the fatherin law first dropped her husband to the temple. When he came to pick her up, hefirst raped her and then took her to the temple. When she related her trauma tothe husband, both went to Mapusa Police Station. The father in law was summonedand the son asked to slap him. The couple were shocked that the police toldthem “now the matter is settled, go home.”
The traumatised woman expressed her ordeal to an NGO daysafter the forensic evidence had been wiped out by bathing. But the worst wasyet to come. Another visit to the Police Station and the victim was told, “Yourmarriage was not registered in Goa, so it is not recognised. Your so calledmarriage too will be examined.”. The hapless victim preferred to live with herpain and grief thereafter.
For a state, where police have emerged as sex maniacs andpimps, how can the violated be expected to be comfortable and treated withcompassion and empathy after her faith in civil society has already beenshaken?
