A POCSO court docket in Rajasthan on Tuesday sentenced six males to life imprisonment within the Ajmer intercourse scandal case. Some of the disturbing prison circumstances from the early Nineties, it concerned the sexual exploitation and blackmailing of as many as 100 younger schoolgirls in Ajmer.
The six accused, recognized as Nafees Chishti, Naseem alias Tarzan, Salim Chishti, Iqbal Bhati, Sohail Ghani and Syed Zameer Hussain, had been discovered responsible of the heinous crimes. The court docket additionally imposed a high-quality of Rs 5 lakh on every accused. Beforehand, 9 others had been jailed for all times in the identical case and 4 had been acquitted by the excessive court docket.
The Ajmer Rape Case 1992
The 1992 Ajmer gangrape case, referred to as the “Ajmer blackmail kaand,” concerned the gangrape and blackmail of a number of younger girls, with video recordings and photographs used to silence them. The case uncovered a poisonous mixture of political patronage, spiritual affect, impunity, and small-town glamour.
The case was first uncovered by journalist Santosh Gupta in a neighborhood newspaper, Dainik Navjyoti, in April 1992.
The accused, together with the influential Chishty duo of Farooq and Nafis, related to the Ajmer Sharif Dargah, and their associates, exploited and gang raped scores of schoolgirls. A neighborhood photograph lab printed and circulated nude footage of the victims.
When the case got here to mild, spiritual tensions flared in Ajmer, resulting in city-wide shutdowns. Regardless of the general public outcry, the identities and whereabouts of the survivors remained unknown. Many victims got here from modest, middle-class households of presidency workers however had been misleadingly labelled as “IAS-IPS ki betiyan” (daughters of IAS and IPS officers), by the media. A number of households fled Ajmer within the aftermath, searching for refuge from the stigma and trauma.
Attorneys stated that Part 273 of the Prison Process Code required survivors to testify within the presence of the accused.
Police data, although incomplete, reveal the survivors’ first names and outdated addresses, making it difficult to take care of contact. For over 30 years, the fixed summons to court docket, usually accompanied by policemen arriving at their doorstep, turned a painful reminder of the ordeal for the victims.
“I’m now a grandmother, depart me alone. We have now households. What will we inform them?” cried a gangrape survivor again in 2021 after being summoned to court docket once more.
Even the police had been annoyed. In 2022, SHO Dalbeer Singh, tasked with delivering summons for a few yr, shared the emotional toll on the survivors, “What number of occasions will we drag them to court docket? On telephone calls, they abuse us. Each time they see a policeman at their doorways, they get terrified.”
Describing the expertise as “one hell of a activity”, he revealed the heartbreaking penalties of repeatedly forcing survivors to relive their trauma. One household reported that their daughter had died, presumably because of the emotional toll, and one other household despatched a lawyer to intimidate him. A minimum of three victims tried suicide after recording their statements in court docket.
In 2023, sacked Rajasthan minister Rajinder Gudha alleged that Congress leaders, together with former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, had been concerned within the scandal.
The 2023 Hindi film, Ajmer 92, can also be primarily based on the notorious Ajmer intercourse scandal.
