Childhood interrupted: Family awaits justice 8 years after baby was raped

One family’s quest for justice after their infant was raped exposes delays, trauma and the struggle to shield their daughter from the truth. xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogleAdd Al Jazeera on GoogleinfoWarning: This article contains references to sexual abuse. Delhi, India – “Just you wait – Bua will set you straight, won’t you?” Pia’s father, Madhav*, jokes over the phone. He wants me, in my role as her adoptive aunt, to scold little Pia. Unbeknown to him, I shake my head, somewhat taken aback by the expectation. “Here, talk to Bua,” I hear him say, prodding his eight-year-old daughter. I can hear the child squirming, swatting his hand away, and saying, “Don’t tell on me! Don’t tell Bua!” Before I can pass along reassurances, Pia is on the phone – honey-tongued and precocious, whispering “Bua” (Aunt). I play along, asking if she is indeed shrugging off her maths homework before turning to her upcoming birthday celebration. “Another birthday soon,” I exclaim, “isn’t nine a fun number?” We land on crayon pencils for her present – and then she asks if I’ve eaten, in the cute, hospitable manner her parents have taught her. She then hands the phone back to her parents. This time, it’s her mother, Rakhi, on the line. “She’s growing up, Didi (Sister) – they both are,” she says about her daughters before sharing her worries. “How long will this go on? How long will I be able to keep this from her?” I had been sent on assignment to a tucked-away northwest Delhi gully, where an eight-month-old baby had been raped weeks earlier, on January 28, 2018. Newspapers had reported the crime, and interest was growing, so my editor suggested I follow up and investigate the minutiae of the case. I found Madhav and Rakhi on floor mats, cradling their older daughter – then two years old – as neighbours, social workers and friends sat on the one bed in their tiny eight-by-eight foot (2.4m) room, their only living space. Gradually, the crowd dispersed with a squeeze of Madhav’s shoulder, a palm grasping Rakhi’s hand for a brief second. I stayed and we talked and we’ve been in touch ever since. That first meeting has evolved into a years-long comradeship with the family, a bond forged by journalism, chai, crayons and courts. I already know – as Rakhi raises the issue – that it shouldn’t take this long for justice. That it is getting harder to keep news of the rape trial from Pia and her year-and-a-half-older sister Muskan. When it happened, Pia was eight months old and living with her toddler sister, a mother who cleaned and cooked in the neighbourhood’s affluent houses and a father who worked on construction sites to earn a day’s wage. The house hasn’t changed much since 2018. There’s one room with a bed for the four of them to sleep in, a gas stove on the floor for cooking, and the crockery is stuffed under the bed. There’s a sliver of floor space along the length of the bed, where Madhav often stretches out a flat-woven rug to sit, cross-legged, on summer evenings and enjoy the breeze. The focal point of the room is usually the large television screen mounted on the wall opposite the bed. Then there’s the open terrace, which divides the house – two floors beneath them and one floor above. A tiny staircase cuts through the terrace, so anyone going up or down must cross the terrace. Over the years, I’ve seen the adornments on the terrace evolve with the family – from school-age buckle-ballerinas, scuffed from playtime and a second-hand cooler too, when money came in, to racks and shelves for storage and potted plants that Rakhi nurses with pride. That day in January 2018 was a Sunday, and Madhav and Rakhi left for their respective jobs, entrusting the children to the care of Madhav’s extended family, a common practice. They shared the family home with Madhav's two older brothers, their wives and their children. A few hours later, when Rakhi returned, she heard loud, relentless screams as she walked up the stairs to her home. She hurried to see what was wrong and was horrified to find Pia lying in a pool of blood and excrement. Muskan was on the terrace. “I immediately walked out and shouted for Suraj,” Rakhi said, referring to the then-28-year-old son of Madhav’s eldest brother, who lived in the tiny room on the floor above. Rakhi screamed with desperation, and when Suraj emerged from downstairs, walking past her to his room, she asked: “Suraj, did you enter my room?” According to Rakhi, Suraj averted his gaze and muttered something about calling his wife. A few minutes later, one of Rakhi’s sisters-in-law appeared, and Suraj slipped away to his room upstairs. “She’s just had a bowel movement,” the sister-in-law said, but Rakhi knew it was much worse. Rakhi quickly called her husband and then took her two daughters to the home of a kind, older woman for whom she worked. “She took one look at Pia and said that I should find a doctor in haste. So, I did,” Rakhi explained. The doctor at the neighbourhood clinic

Childhood interrupted: Family awaits justice 8 years after baby was raped

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