I fought back on behalf of women who’ve been sexually harassed - and we won!
I was nine when I was touched inappropriately by a carpenter who was at home constructing our furniture. I was 15 when a man who was crossing the road put his hand inside my rickshaw and pressed my breasts, I was 23 when a man in a BEST bus rubbed his penis against me in a crowded bus (I never took the bus after that).
These have been only a handful of instances that I’ve remembered and will carry to my grave.
But what haunts me now is the fact that I did not do anything to fix it. I didn’t even raise my voice. All I did was return home and cry.
I didn’t even tell my friends about it, let alone my parents. I remember being disgusted by the fact that I have breasts. I had body image issues at the age of 13. And I will never forget the fact that a 40-something-year-old carpenter chose to do that to a nine-year-old child.
Cut to August 22, 2018. I did the same thing again. I kept quiet.
I ran, yes.
But I didn’t scream.
My first instinct was to run away from all the men who were around me.
Men.
Not even the man with the dick in his hand. All I wanted to do was run away from that image. I managed to save his license number. I went home, locked myself in the bathroom and cried.
I knew I’m going to sleep with that image and that still hasn’t let me sleep in 48 hours. And I didn’t cry because I saw a man masturbating. I cried because I thought of women, in general, who are sexually abused every day. And that killed me.
For all the times I’ve kept mum about these incidences in the past, it must have formed a chain. I must have been one of the links in that chain. I must have been one of the 100 other links that made the chain he gloriously wraps around his penis because that’s where I believe his head is. But I wanted to be the last link of the chain this time. I wanted to ensure that this time, just this one time, the chain ends with me.
I tweeted, and subsequently received a DM (direct message) in 26 seconds from the Mumbai Police who later connected me with Maya Gawade, the woman who filed my FIR and also who sat me down and gave me the “woke-est” speech ever!
I can’t thank my stars for having found this lady. She asked me uncomfortable questions but I didn’t hesitate from answering any because she explained why she needed to know it.
Who does that?
After this, the procedure — involving a super-harrowing five hours of waiting, visiting the crime scene, etc. — was carried out. Right before I left to do that, DCP Sangramsinh Nishandar called me to tell me how he’s going to make sure his officers don’t rest until they find the offender.
Now what you’re going to read below is the timeline of what happened on August 24 — and the day a man kept his word.
8am: I get a call asking to come to the police station to identify three men they caught in the night.
9am: I reach there and find it’s none of them. So Crime PA, Ravi Adane (Kandivali) and PI Ravindra Avhade (Borivali) along with a lady constable head to revisit the entire scene from scratch. We head to Infiniti Mall, where I’d found the rickshaw guy in the first place.
10am: We look for CCTVs that faced the road. We hardly found any. The ones that were found couldn’t capture it well (because they weren’t night vision). This continued and we were accompanied by Malvani, Malad PI Ghansham Nayar who continued this search until we reached the last leg — where the sex pest halted his rickshaw to masturbate.
11:30am: We entered a school that had a CCTV facing the road. I knew this is it. This is how we find him. But to my disappointment, the CCTV captured me running, but it hid the rickshaw behind a bus that was parked right in front of the CCTV. This meant we had to start from scratch.
Now amidst all this, they’ve already sent people to look for all rickshaws that ended with the number 39**. So, the hunt to look for him manually via RTO files was on whilst we were on road.
12:30-3pm: None of the inspectors have had food/lunch, ANYTHING. They’ve only been tracing leads until they finally find the owner of the rickshaw guy. One of the Inspectors was on the case since August 22 — and hadn’t gone home at all!
3:30pm: The guy who owns the rickshaw was found in Uttar Pradesh. His father owned the rickshaw but had passed away, after which it was given to a certain Bahadur for rent.
Bahadur is the name of the man who sexually harassed me.
He didn’t have a phone. The owner of the rickshaw didn’t know where he lived. There was zilch information on this man. Except one tiny detail the owner gave - he lived near a Khaadi in Borivali.
3:45pm: We reach a slum area near the Khaadi where a lot of rickshaw guys usually park their vehicles. The inspectors enter the chawl. Find out there are two men with the surname that live in the area. The description that I gave matched one of them.
4:00pm: Bahadur is found in a “disgusting” state in his home. He’s mentally unsound. Has no license to drive a rickshaw; and was in a pathetic state. The Inspectors kept mentioning how he was found in a state that’s inexplicable.
4:06pm: I meet my sexual offender and look at him in the eye whilst he dwindles, struggles to stand, behaves like he doesn’t know what he’s done.
I want to cry — but I hold back my tears because crying takes too much energy and I have none to waste on an asshole.
5pm: We meet the DCP at the Borivali Police Station who ensures this man will never drive a rickshaw in Mumbai ever again. I thank everybody and leave.
All of this happened in less than 24 hours.
All it took was one tweet. Patience. And cooperation.
All it took was a team of intelligent, diligent, patient officers who helped me through this by constantly assuring me they’ll do everything they can to close this case asap. I was confident the minute I was told this by Inspector Lokhande yesterday.
I will be going to record my statement in court soon.
I asked the Senior PI if I could slap the offender but I withdrew the request later because I didn’t want to touch anything that has permanently scarred me. He looked so disgusting; I was trying really hard not to puke when I shared the same car with him. If I ever get a picture of him (I asked for it, but was asked to be patient and wait until the court hearing), I will make sure I post it online for everybody to see how age doesn’t matter when it comes to sexual offences.
He was an old man.
I can’t believe it’s over. I can’t believe I fought back. I can’t believe I didn’t stay silent. I fought back on behalf of the nine-year-old, 15-year-old, 23-year-old me and hundreds of women who messaged me to tell me they’ve faced worse.
It’s alright if you don’t fight back, scream or give it back, I thought it’s easy — it’s not. But don’t stop.
Don’t stay silent after it’s happened.
End it.
I did.
The chain ends at me.
(This is from a post online by the survivor. This is an edited excerpt published with due permission).