The Rape Drape

Why rape/molest? Why force a victim into something that is so gruesome? Why show-off one’s strength on the weaker sex? Why knowingly scar a person’s life forever? What drives people into committing such ghastly crimes?

Abhishek Kasliwal (27), the son of Ambuj Kasliwal, promoters of the Rs. 1,500-crore S Kumars group, was arrested after a 52-year-old widow and mother-of-two said he repeatedly raped her in the Sriram Mills premises on Saturday morning.

Although the woman named the alleged assailant as Vicky Malhotra, who picked her up from south Mumbai and took her to Shree Ram Mills at Worli where she was allegedly raped and hit, police named Abhishek as the accused after the watchman of the Mill admitted to having seen the woman accompany Abhishek that night. During the sexual assault, she sustained bruises on the neck and her right arm was twisted, she said. The victim, after being dropped at Colaba by Kasliwal, went to the police station and registered a complaint. A medical examination at GT Hospital, Marine Lines, confirmed that she had been raped. The police are awaiting the medical report on Kasliwal.

A man with a history of making obscene and lewd gestures at public places has also been accused of another sexual assault on a young girl working at a local call-centre.

Also known by friends, as a speed junkie who loved spending most of his free time tinkering with mean machines in his own garage at Shree Ram Mills.

A son of a scion and a lady almost double his age. Inconsistencies have already begun to appear in the victim’s statement. Clashing evidences complicating a case; who is society to blame?

This story has been labeled “breaking news” by majority mainstream media, but is it really worth so much coverage? What if the accused belonged to a middle class upbringing, then the same act would have been relegated to back pages with perhaps no mention in the televised news.

His family unlike other families wants the law to take its own course, they haven’t tried to intervene in any way nor have they visited the accused in prison. It’s a shame how a culprit’s family gets dragged into his dirt for no fault of theirs. It’s a daily struggle for them until the case may subside or sometimes even after the accused is sentenced for life. A heritage reputation damaged within days.

In my opinion the most likely result of this on-going episode would be an out-of-court settlement. The victim would walk away with a lot of money and the accused with his freedom.