“Nirbhaya” means “the fearless one.” It is also the pseudonym that was given to a young girl in New Delhi due to an Indian law that states that victims cannot be named in certain crimes. However, in the documentary India’s Daughter we learn that her name was Jyoti Singh. In this 2015 documentary, her parents say that they were more than willing to share her name with the world. Because her parents are ok with her name being shared and they are willing to share her story with the documentary, we’ll use her real name as well.
Jyoti was raped and murdered in 2012, but her death brought out the rage in many people. Not only was her death horrific and painful, but it also shone a light on the disturbing way women are seen and treated in India.
What Happened...
On Sunday, December 16, 2012, 23-year-old medical student, Jyoti and her male friend, Awnindra were coming home from seeing “Life of Pi” in theaters. Jyoti was going to start her medical internship on Monday and told her mom that she just wanted to go out one more time before she no longer had any freetime. Jyoti was already working very hard to make her dream of being a doctor come true. Her parents were poor and in order to help pay her fees, Jyoti worked at an international call center at night from 8 pm – 4 am. She got maybe 3-4 hours of sleep a night and then did it all over again. When a friend asked her how she did it, Jyoti told them, because she had to and she can. Jyoti always said that girls can do anything.
Jyoti told her mom that “her little girl is a doctor now” and that she didn’t need to worry about her anymore. She told her mom she’d only be gone a couple of hours that night. After the movie, the couple hopped on a chartered bus that was “off-duty” at about 8:30 pm. In India, or at least in this area, these buses will pick up passengers when they aren’t actively working. When the bus started moving, a group of men who were already on the bus approached the couple. One of the men supposedly (according to the driver interviewed in the documentary) asked Awnindra why he was out so late with a girl. According to the man, Awnindra said that it was none of the men’s business and slapped him.
They beat up Awnindra who then hid between the seats, and then they dragged Jyoti to the back of the bus. Once they were back there, the men attacked and raped Jyoti. The men took off the couple’s clothes. They took turns raping Jyoti, and then they used an iron rod to violate her. When they were done, the men threw both Jyoti and Awnindra from the bus. They were tossed out of the front door of the bus bloody, beaten, and naked. Jyoti and Awnindra were found by patrolman Raj Kumar, who heard someone yelling for help. He saw a man and a woman lying naked in the bushes on the side of the road.
Kumar ran across the street to a hotel and got a bed sheet and water. He ripped the sheet in half so he could cover each of them. Kumar said that there were 30-35 men all gathered around the couple, but no one helped even after he asked them specifically. When the ambulance finally got there, it took the two young people to the hospital. Jyoti’s parents were called and told that their daughter had been raped. Dr. Rashmi Ahuja was the gynecologist at the hospital when Jyoti arrived. She said that Jyoti was not screaming or unconscious, but she was giving clear details and descriptions. Jyoti had been slapped in the face, kicked in the abdomen, she had bite marks all over her body, and multiple other injuries all over her body. Jyoti’s insides had been pulled out of her vagina. The patrol officer that found her said she looked like a cow who had just given birth to a calf.
Jyoti’s mother said the surgeon told her that they had been a doctor for 20 years and had never seen anything like this. She said that the doctor explained to her that the “system by which the body functions is gone,” and they “don’t know what parts to join.” Her estimated prognosis was 2-3 days, but they were honestly not even sure how she was alive right now. Over the next weeks, Jyoti began to deteriorate. She was in so much pain and was having a more difficult time talking. Her mom said that she was by her side the entire time and that the worst thing was being helpless.
Two weeks after her attack, on December 29, 2012, Jyoti died at Mount Elizabeth Hospital. Her father remembered Jyoti sleeping on his chest as an infant and holding his finger, but now he would have to set her on fire for the cremation. Jyoti’s mom said Jyoti’s last words to her were apologies for causing them so much trouble. Her mom also said, “We never realized how much we were attached to her. But since she left us, we have no idea how to start life again, where to start from.”
The Suspects, Their Version of the Night, and Their Arrest
The police were able to locate and arrest 6 suspects quickly. One suspect was. 28-year-old, Mukesh Singh. The literal driver of the bus. The other suspects were:
- Akshay Thakur, the bus cleaner…
- Vinay Sharma, a part-time gym instructor…
- Pawan Gupta, a fruit vendor…
- 34-year-old, Ram Singh, Mukesh’s (the driver) older brother and supposed ring leader…
- A17-year-old whose name was withheld since he was a minor at the time.
Most of these men lived in the same camp in RK Puram. Mukesh and Ram lived together with their parents while Vinay and Pawan lived in nearby homes. Akshay lived with his family in another area and the juvenile didn’t really live anywhere.
Mukesh’s story is that on December 16th, he and Akshay were hanging out at his (Mukesh’s) house. Akshay had just finished washing the bus when Ram got home around 5-6 pm. Ram brought alcohol home with him, and he and Akshay drank and drank. They all drank, but Ram and Akshay drank to excess. The men decided that, we’ve got some money, let’s go get into some shit. They went to a party and then at some point went to GB Road. Mukesh said that this is the street where bad things happen.
Mukesh estimated that the attack took maybe 15-20 minutes. He said that the men turned out the lights in the bus, and Ram was running the show. They beat up Awnindra, and then he hid between the seats. Jyoti was screaming for help and Ram told Mukesh not to stop the bus and keep driving. Then the men dragged her to the back of the bus.
***It’s about to get super graphic – TRIGGER WARNING***
The men took turns raping Jyoti. Mukesh said first the 17-year-old, then Ram, then Akshay, then the rest. Mukesh said that someone put his hand inside Jyoti and pulled out “something long.” It was her intestines. Ram told the other men that she was dead, and they needed to throw her off the bus.When the back door wouldn’t open, the men dragged the couple to the front door and threw them both out. Mukesh said that he sobered up quickly after this and drove them home. The other men went through Jyoti and Awnindra’s belongings; keeping the things they wanted. They took a cell phone, a watch, Pawan put on a pair of shoes, and Akshay put on a jacket.
At this point is when the juvenile said that he threw away what he had pulled from Jyoti’s body. He said he wrapped it in a cloth and threw it out. When they got home, the men made a pact not to talk about this or say anything to police if they were confronted. Mukesh told the interviewer that there was blood everywhere. The seats, the floors…lots of blood.
Akshay and the juvenile cleaned up the bus. Vinay came to Mukesh and Ram’s house to wash his hands. Mukesh says that he went to sleep after all this.
CCTV footage captured a bus that passed by that spot twice. The “Additional Deputy Commissioner Delhi Police,” Pramod Kushwa noted that this wasn’t usual for a bus to do that. The police were alerted that the bus was parked at RK Puram, where the men lived. As soon as the cops approached the bus, a man jumped out and ran. He was caught and almost immediately confessed. The four men that lived at the camp were found there and arrested.
Police used dental forensics to match the bite marks on Jyoti’s face, lips, and limbs. They were able to positively match the marks to Akshay and Ram. Mukesh claimed not to be able to explain why this “accident” happened except that they wanted to teach the couple a lesson. Mukesh Singh said in India’s Daughter, “A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy…Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20% of girls are good.” He claimed that people “had the right to teach them a lesson.”
He kept going, saying: “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they’d have dropped her off after ‘doing her’, and only hit the boy…The death penalty will make things even more dangerous for girls. Now when they rape, they won’t leave the girl like we did. They will kill her. Before, they would rape and say, ‘Leave her, she won’t tell anyone.’ Now when they rape, especially the criminal types, they will just kill the girl. Death.”
Dr. Maria Misra from Oxford University said that this was to send a message and establish a boundary. She also commented that in this culture, rape is worse than death because it comes with a deep shame. She said that politicians would say that it’s better that a victim die than be shamed. They become a “walking corpse.”
Statistics and Information
Even though there was significant pressure from the public and they were raging about the injustices to women, this case managed to stretch out over 8 years, from 2012 to just this March. In these years, it’s not like life suddenly became more safe for women in India. India is a democracy and has laws against crimes like this, however, the laws are not implemented. In fact, according to one article, Article 14 of the Indian Constitution declares equal rights for women. Giving a dowry is considered illegal, but still happens.
India’s Daughter quoted a statistic that a woman is raped every 20 minutes in India and that Delhi, the nation’s capital, was known as the “rape capital.”
According to one BBC.com article about this case, The National Crime Records Bureau released these numbers:
- Police registered 33,977 rape cases in 2018.
- This is an average of 93 cases per day.
According to U.N. Women.org:
- 28.8% of Indian women experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence at least once in their lifetime
- 22% of Indian women experienced this in the last year
- And, 27% of women were married as children (before age 18)
India’s population is about 1.37 billion people. If half are women, that’s almost 685 million women. If 28.8% of these women have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence at least once in their lives. That’s over 197 million women.
According to an article called The Indian “girl” psychology: A perspective on NCBI’s website,
“The male: female ratio as per census 2011[3] is 933:1000, which is alarming. Given the biological norm of 100 newborn girls to every 103 newborn boys, millions more women should be living among us. If they are not, if they are “missing,” it means either they have been killed or have died through neglect and mistreatment. In India, the birth of a boy is a time for celebration, while the birth of a girl – especially a second or subsequent daughter – is often perceived as a crisis.[4] Three-quarters of the population of India still resides in rural areas where the problems related to girl child are predominant.”
The population in America is about 330 million. Total. If half are women, that’s 165 million.
For further comparison:
France’s stats from U.N. Women.org were:
- 26% of women experienced physical and/of sexual intimate partner violence at least once in their lifetime (France’s population is about 65 million. Half of that would be 32.5 million. If 26% of 32.5 million women experience violence from a partner, that’s 845,000 women.)
- 5% of women experienced this within the last year (about 1.6 million women)
- 9% of women experienced non-partner physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime (about 5.9 million women)
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island:
- 29% of women experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence at least once in their lifetime. (UK population is about 67.8 million. Half would be 33.9 million. If 29% of those women have experienced intimate partner violence that’s 9.8 million women.)
- 5% of women experienced this within the last year (about 1.7 million)
- 7% of women experienced non-partner physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime (about 2.4 million)
Zimbabwe:
- 37.6% of women experienced physical and/of sexual intimate partner violence at least once in their lifetime (Population 17.8 million. Half – 8.9 million. 37.6% of 8.9 million is 3.3 million women.)
- 19.9% of women experienced this within the last year (about 1.8 million)
- 32.4% of women were married as children (before age 18) (about 2.9 million)
What’s more upsetting is that these are only the number of cases that are reported. There are still thousands and thousands of cases that go unreported. This is especially true in countries like India where the stigma associated with being raped is so much more devastating than places like America.
One article from the BBC said about India, “no one is safe – a victim could be an 8-month-old or a septuagenarian, she could be rich or poor or middle class, an assault could take place in a village or the big city, inside her own home or on the street.”
In fact, this article linked to another that tells about an 8-month-old that was brutally raped by her 28-year-old cousin. She was so badly injured that she required surgery. The article also presented India’s statistics from Unicef that said:
- Police recorded 19,765 cases of child rape in 2016
- 240 million women living in India were married before they turned 18
- 53.22% of children who participated in a government study reported some form of sexual abuse
- 50% of abusers are known to the child or are “persons in trust and care-givers”
Other cases of violence against women, women are set on fire after they are attacked or in one case, the woman was on her way to testify against her rapist when she was set on fire. She
was burned over 90% of her body and died 3 days later in the hospital. There are acid attacks, domestic beatings, and what they call the sex ratio. Apparently, there are “missing women” due to “pre birth sex selection.” Basically, people find out they’re having a girl and get rid of it. Leila Seth, Former Chief Justice, said that in Bombay out of 10,000 fetuses destroyed, 9,999 were girls.
Boys grow up thinking that the girls are less than they are. The girls eat last and they eat less. Girls are objects for them to do with as they please. A jail psychiatrist said that many of the men in the prisons are there for MAYBE 12 rapes, but they have committed hundreds. It’s a “man’s right.” These men have been committing crimes for years and getting away with it so they keep doing it and often do worse. Jyoti’s murder lit a fire under an already simmering anger about the treatment of women in India, but there was still a long way to go.
For part two, click here!
