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Ishrat S Banwait
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, June 20
She still remembers the pleasant April day in 2015. The bus journey from Rishikesh to Chandigarh had been a bit rough but it was exciting. She had wanted to stay back a little longer in Uttarakhand but time was a problem. Three months after she came from USA on a tourist visa, she was happy with her long-awaited India trip and was ready to go home. And then suddenly her dream vacation turned into a nightmare.
In an assault that shocked and shamed Chandigarh, Cathy was raped by two men who promised to help her find a hotel for the night before she could take a cab to Delhi. The days that followed were sheer horror. Three years after that fateful night of April 17, Cathy, now 31, spoke about her attack for the first time in an exclusive conversation with The Tribune.
“I was to fly to France the next day from Delhi after arriving in Chandigarh from Rishikesh,” she said.
“When I got down from the bus, I went with a man called Baldev (the main accused in the case who was arrested in December last year) in his auto-rickshaw. The first hotel he took me to refused to offer me a room saying my visa had expired, though it hadn’t. Later he drove me to Kharar. There, I was forced to consume alcohol. Before I knew, Baldev and his accomplice Jaswinder Singh, alias Lucky, began to rape me.”
Cathy, whose real name The Tribune is not using to protect her identity, said she was scared and didn’t know what to do. Dreading a journey to Delhi alone, she accompanied a Canadian tourist back to Rishikesh the next day instead. Confused and rattled, she didn’t approach the police immediately. She also had no idea where to find them so late in the night.
On her way to Rishikesh, a dark thought crossed her mind: what if the men who had raped her passed on something dreadful to her. She thought it was best to get a medical check-up done. But what happened in the two hospitals she went to left her devastated. Doctors in Haridwar refused to examine her and instead blamed her for bringing it all upon herself.
“They said it was my fault. And that I was responsible for what happened. I even begged a female doctor to see if I had contracted any sexually transmitted disease. But I was refused.”
Another shocker in Chandigarh for Cathy was the police’s “callous attitude”. She had written an e-mail to the then IG of Chandigarh police, RP Upadhyay, narrating her ordeal. Police asked her for details about the incident and medical report. “They scheduled a WhatsApp call but the connection was poor. They never called again,” she said. “After this, the police did not communicate for six months. Every time I dropped an e-mail, the response would come after three to four months.”
Cathy said the first arrest took place two-and-a-half years after the crime was committed. Lucky is still absconding. Also, till date, her statement under Section 164 of the CrPC has not been taken. Neither has an identification parade been done.
“The police asked me to come down to India again for these procedures but it is not possible for me due to money and time constraints. I have asked them to do so through video-conferencing,” she said. Police have moved an application for it to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
The police denied any wrong from their side and said it was she who was “non-responsive”. DSP Anjitha Chepalya said, “The victim does not respond to e-mails. We have to send multiple messages to get her response.”
Asked if she has any hope that the perpetrators would be brought to justice, Cathy said, “I have given up on the judiciary and the police. I just want to move on as every aspect of my life has been affected.”
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