By Prema Sridevi

This is the story of a middle-class woman in India who fell victim to one of the most heinous crimes of gangrape, assault and public shaming in January 2022. The story is important for several reasons. First, the woman is a gangrape survivor. Second, she was paraded in the heart of India's national capital - Delhi. Third, this occurred on the streets of Delhi, just a few kilometres away from where the government heads and the who’s who of Delhi were celebrating Republic Day. Fourth, as we speak, today the survivor is still engaged in a relentless fight for justice - justice that continues to elude her.

My involvement with this case began around August last year, amidst our active search for women who had suffered from extreme forms of sexual violence. At that time, both the international and national media in India shifted their attention to the escalating violence in Manipur between the Meitei and Kuki tribes, marked by a disturbing incident where two women were stripped naked and paraded by a mob. The unsettling video of the incident quickly went viral, showing the women being assaulted, groped and forced to walk towards an empty field. The video forced both the global and the national media to focus their coverage on Manipur. While contributing to the coverage, my aim was to highlight the fact that such atrocities are not isolated incidents within India. Many women, across various walks of life and spanning all spheres and social strata, from top metros to remote towns and villages across geographies, fall victim to senseless acts of violence, some of which are so brutal they defy description.

While searching for victims, my team and I spoke to many women and their families. We heard shocking accounts of events during the course of the story, some from the victims themselves and others from their distraught families. We also came face to face with the story of how a village panchayat had ordered a naked parade of a minor girl and boy in Rajasthan in Banswara in 2017.

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