REPORTER:  Amos Roberts

 

SUZETTE JORDAN:  This is a scrapbook that I'm doing on all the cases that are happening.

 

This is Suzette Jordan's catalogue of horror - a record of sexual violence against women in India over the past two years.

 

SUZETTE JORDAN:  Woman fights molester. It's really, really horrible. It's like in my head I have so many women up there screaming. I'm now going to fight for all of them in my own way - through my own experience.

 

The experience Suzette refers to is the night her life changed two years ago. It was February 2012. Suzette was drinking with friends at a nightclub in Kolkata's Park Hotel, where she met a friendly stranger.

 

SUZETTE JORDAN:  He had been, you know, smiling and... Hand gestures. And I of course also smiled and waved back, you know? I didn't think there was anything wrong with that.

 

She realised there was something wrong soon after accepting a lift from the man, when he let four of his friends into the car.

 

SUZETTE JORDAN:  When the car started to move towards the exit, the person on my left grabbed me by my breast and I screamed and then I yelled at him and then I turned to the guy on the right who had befriended me and said, "I would like to get off here" and I tried to open the door to get off but it was locked and I tried to get out and there was no possible way of that - and that was when I knew that I was in big trouble. I can't even explain the kind of trauma and horror that transpired that night.

 

She was beaten and raped by the men in the car. But what happened to Suzette Jordan after the rape - when she sought help from the authorities - was also horrific.

 

NEWSREADER:  In a shocker from Kolkata a mother of two was allegedly raped at gunpoint in a moving car earlier this month but that is not really where the shocker ends.

 

NEWSREADER 2:   What is worse - the policemen mocked the victim, taking no action even as the culprits roamed free.

 

SUZETTE JORDAN:  They humiliated me - they made me feel as if it was my fault. They talked about me, you know, being at the nightclub. They constantly asked me if I was sure I was raped.

 

REPORTER:   What do you mean, they talked about you being at the nightclub?

 

SUZETTE JORDAN:  The way they questioned me - oh you are at the nightclub, drinking, beer your favourite drink?

 

REPORTER:   The implication that a woman who has gone to a nightclub and drank alcohol she really can't be complaining when she is gets gang raped?

 

SUZETTE JORDAN:  Yes, yes, especially if I was a 37-year-old woman who had two daughters, and you know, I shouldn't be complaining if I got raped - that was the feeling I got.

 

NEWSREADER 2:  The claim of the Indian woman that she was raped in a car in Kolkata is contrived and intended to malign her government.

 

Under fire for her government's handling of the case, West Bengal's chief minister Mamata Banerjee said Suzette's rape story was all part of a campaign by her political enemies.

 

SUZETTE JORDAN:  And that for me was very scary and not only for me but for my daughters because they have to go to school and they had to come back and when she made that comment, that night there was a mob of people outside my gate.

 

REPORTER:    They knew who you were?

 

SUZETTE JORDAN:  Yes, they knew who I was, because the police were coming in and out and everybody in that area knew, so there was a mob outside.

 

REPORTER:    What were they there for?

 

SUZETTE JORDAN:  They wanted to break my gates down. They were baying for my blood.

SUZETTE JORDAN, SPEAKING ON CNN:  I'm the one who was raped and victimised and I'm still being victimised by everybody.

 

NEWSREADER:   The West Bengal government has a lot to answer for. The victim of a brutal rape was first mocked by the police - the Chief Minister even rubbishing her complaints as a conspiracy is to malign her government. Now it turns out the victim was telling the truth.

 

For Suzette it was vindication. Police identified her attackers using CCTV footage from the nightclub. Three men were arrested.

 

NEWSREADER:   We are waiting for your calls and the question we are asking - I will just repeat that once again - should Mamata apologise to the rape victim for insensitive remarks?

 

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE:  My question is do you think how these women crime cases are being dealt with, is it dealt with an in a right way.

 

INTERVIEWER:  There is another question on the same topic.

 

In a televised public forum with university students the notoriously prickly chief minister faced tough questions about the handling of rape cases.

 

MAMATA BANERJEE:  They are asking the Maoist question and the CPM question, they are the CPM cadre. I am not going to give any reply.

 

Growing increasingly angry, she accused the program of stacking the audience with her political opponents.

 

MAMATA BANERJEE:  No, I'm sorry. No, I cannot stay. No, no, no

 

And stormed out of the studio.. The attacks on Suzette escalated - with a MP from the chief minister's party accusing her of being a prostitute.

 

KAKOLI GHOSH DASTIDAR, TMC MP:  If you are referring to the Park Street case - that is a different case altogether. That was not at all a rape case - it was a misunderstanding between two parties in a professional meeting between a lady and her client.

 

REPORTER:   Why did a Cabinet minister and MP in Delhi attack Suzette Jordan's character, suggesting she shouldn't be out at a nightclub late at night and even alleging she was a prostitute. That was after the alleged rapists had been arrested.

 

CHANDRIMA BATTACHARYA, CHIEF LAW MINISTER OF WEST BENGAL:   No, no, I don't think anyone has said about someone is a prostitute - I do not know. But you know, Indian society has its own heritage and tradition. It might be that looking into that aspect, one might have said that one should not be - a lady should not have gone out at that hour of night.

 

NEWSREADER 2:   There has been complete politicisation of the death of a gang rape victim in Kolkata. A 16 year old.

 

In West Bengal, each new rape case has taken on a political dimension. The funeral of this 16-year-old girl sent the media into a frenzy of outrage.

 

NEWS REPORTER:   It's not just the horror that the victim and her family went through, but also the alleged incense activity of the police that has sent shockwaves across the city.

 

RAMASHANKAR JHA, GIRL'S FATHER (Translation):  Since the rape, I have been struggling for 3 to 4 months - no government counsellor came to see me. Even the Chief Minister did not shed a tear for my daughter or sympathise with me. This will only encourage rapists.

 

Just weeks after her death, Ramashankar and Anita Jha are grieving the loss of their daughter.

 

RAMASHANKAR JHA (Translation): She was very good looking, she was good at studies and she was a good cook as well. If we had visitors, she used to serve them some tea and snacks.

 

Their story starts one night in October last year - when the girl went missing. When she returned the following morning, she said she had been brought here - not far from her home on the outskirts of Kolkata - and raped by six young men.

 

RAMASHANKAR JHA (Translation):  She had bruises and injuries all over her body - they tried to kill her. There were strangulation marks on her neck. Her whole body was covered in mud.  I was angry with God "What has happened, God? Our honour has been stolen. How can we show our face now? My child's life is over."

 

The next day the family reported the rape at the Madhyamgram police station.

REPORTER:   How did the police treat your family when you came to them with this complaint of rape?

 

RAMASHANKAR JHA (Translation):  There was no treatment, no medical examination, they didn't do anything. Just sat on it. They tried to hide it from the media and the public - how can I say the police role was good?

 

Ramashankar and Anita claim that on their way home from the police station, one of their daughter's attackers abducted her from the back of their cycle rickshaw and raped her again.

 

ANITA JHA, GIRLS MOTHER (Translation):  I felt like - what's the point of living? It happened once and then again. I did not know if my daughter would live or die.

 

The girl was found by the railway police at Madhyamgram station later that night and brought home. Reporters interviewed her the next day, but curiously she didn't mention a second rape.

 

GIRL (Translation):  What is the meaning of life without honour? It is better to die.

 

RAMASHANKAR JHA (Translation):  The police did not register a case of rape, they said they would carry out legal proceedings - they said they would pursue it, but they did not do what they assured me of.

 

ALOKA TALULUKDAR, MOTHER OF ACCUSED (Translation):  My Lord... You know everything. Save us, save us.

 

Aloka Talulukdar is the mother of the man who is accused of instigating the gang rape and then abducting and raping the girl for a second time. She says she is convinced of his innocence.

 

ALOKA TALULUKDAR (Translation):  There is no question about it, no question at all. My son never teased any girl or cracked jokes with any woman.

 

Aloka thinks that if something did happen between the girl and her son, it was consensual, and accuses the girl's father of extortion.

 

ALOKA TALULUKDAR (Translation):  The day the incident took place, that night he came and asked for 200,000 rupees from me, three of them came. Ramashankar, Ramashankar's wife and his daughter, all three of them came. He said "Give me 200,000 rupees and I'll go away to Bihar, I'll return with my daughter to my native village."

 

Ramashankar says the family no longer felt safe in Madhyamgram.

 

RAMASHANKAR JHA (Translation):  I left because I was threatened, it was a bad area and I was scared. My daughter was raped twice and we had death threats, so out of fear we went to the airport area.

 

It was here, in this small shack rented by the girl's family that the most tragic part of their story unfolded.

 

LANDLORD'S BROTHER (Translation):  After waking up around 9.30 am, I was just standing here and massaging my body with oil, I could hear a quarrel going on between the girl who died, her mother and our neighbour. It started about taking water from the roadside tap.

 

RATAN'S WIFE (Translation):  There was a quarrel with that woman who made some snide remarks, raised her past issues. Probably because of that, the girl's mind was affected.

 

LANDLORD'S BROTHER (Translation):  After two or three minutes, the mother of the girl started screaming "Save my daughter! She is getting burnt, getting burnt!" Then I put aside the bottle of oil, rushed out past her mother and I banged the door and smashed part of it. Then I saw the girl was burning.

 

The girl suffered burns to 60% of her body - and died after spending nine days in a hospital without a burns unit.

 

RAMASHANKAR JHA (Translation):  When I last spoke with my daughter she said "Daddy, don't spare those people, they killed me by burning, I was raped, I was burned."  She told me the truth and she died after telling me.

 

His daughter said the same thing to the police.

 

NEWSREADER:   Until yesterday, the 16-year-old gang rape victim who died of burns was believed to have set herself on fire. But no longer. The police confirms she had said in her dying declaration she was set on fire - in short, murdered.

 

These are the men the girl accused of her murder - Ratan Shil and his cousin Minta. Both were arrested the day after the girl's death and remain behind bars almost three months later. This woman is Ratan Shil's wife. He was the girl's family's landlord. The man who rescued the girl from her locked room is Ratan's older brother.

 

LANDLORD'S BROTHER (Translation):  We know that the mention of my brother's name by the girl in her dying declaration and also Minta's name, are total lies - she was lying.

RATAN'S WIFE (Translation):  At the time of the incident, my husband was driving the car of a gentleman in another suburb. He left home to drive at 8am and returned home at 9.30pm.

 

RATAN'S EMPLOYER (Translation):    I felt hurt when I saw him on the TV news wearing the same sweater that he had been wearing when he was driving for me.  I felt very sorry for him.

 

The man Ratan worked for - a former bank manager who is disabled - is happy to corroborate his alibi.

 

RATAN'S EMPLOYER (Translation):    I was surprised that the police didn't visit me, he was working for me the whole day but the police have not come to me.

 

The girl's death led to an undignified struggle over her body.

 

NEWSREADER:   Her father wanted to hold a protest with his daughter's body in Kolkata, which was not allowed by the Kolkata police.

 

The girl's father, allied with left-wing trade unionists, wanted to use her funeral to protest against the state government. To stop them, police snatched the body and tried to get it cremated, before the unionists took it back.

 

NEWSREADER:   The victim's body was taken to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, or CITU, accompanied by trucks full of left party workers who wanted to carry out a procession with the victim's body.

 

Public outrage was driven by hysterical and often inaccurate media coverage.

 

NEWSREADER:   The police inaction is evident as they failed to register a complaint and nabbed the culprits.

 

NEWSREADER 2:   That is not all - the 16-year-old and her family were intimidated, pressured and maligned.

 

NEWSREADER 3:   Clearly the state machinery is now indifferent to this girl's plight.

 

CHANDRIMA BATTACHARYA:  Police only can do that. They have to carry on the investigation properly. They have to see that the accused are arrested. They have to form a - frame the charge sheet and they have to proceed with the case in a very hasty manner, so that the culprit is punished, he or she is
punished, and that is being done by the police. Who says that it has not been done?

 

The rape of Suzette Jordan was a turning point in West Bengal - the authorities are now quicker to respond to complaints of sexual assault, even if their zeal sometimes results in faulty justice. And at least some of the victims are no longer keeping quiet.

 

WOMAN:   Today, taking to the streets is someone we have known as the Park Street rape survivor - but today she is out, disclosing her identity and not afraid to speak out.

 

SUZETTE JORDAN:  Why should I hide my identity when it was not even my fault?

 

Suzette Jordan's case is far from over. Two of her alleged rapists are in hiding in other countries. The trial for the other three has now been going on for a year. But Suzette is determined to see it through.

 

SUZETTE JORDAN:  I'm going to get closure. And I'm going to feel that every other girl will have even more guts to come forward. And they will stop suffering in silence.

 

REPORTER:   If they see you get justice?

 

SUZETTE JORDAN:  Yes. They know they will have a chance, you know? No matter what. Even if you have to fight it. You have to fight it. I think.

 

ANJALI RAO:   Amos Roberts filming and reporting in India. And there has been a new development in the investigation into the death of the 16-year-old rape victim. After more than three months, police have finally confirmed what Amos Roberts was told by witnesses - that the girl committed suicide. But the two men charged with her murder are still behind bars and have no prospect of release until a date is set for their trial. 

 

Meanwhile, two of the men jailed for raping a student on a bus in New Delhi in 2012 have this week had their death sentences stayed - pending the outcome of an appeal. And there is an interview with Amos on our website, talking about the response of India's media to the rape crisis. That is at sbs.com.au/dateline.

 

Reporter/Camera
Amos Roberts

Producer
Allan Hogan

Researcher
Calliste Weitenberg

Fixer
Arup Chanda

Translations
Aesh Rao
Sikder Ahmad
Rajish Aryal
Jitarth Bharadwaj

Editor
David Potts

Original music composed by 

Vicki Hansen