Serial rapes, betrayal and entrapment: The 90s scandal that rocked Ajmer

It was the analog version of the modern-day iCloud leaks. A group of 20-something men in Ajmer talked a ‘friend’ into accompanying them to one of the many poultry farms that once dotted the outskirts of the city. There, after multiple rounds of beer, the inebriated guest was sodomised, photographed and filmed by the men who took him there. Only days later, another ‘friend’ was invited and sodomised. That set off a chain of blackmail and rapes that rocked Ajmer, a sleepy town best known as a tourist magnet for the dargah, the Pushkar lake, and the annual fair around it.Afraid that his nude pictures would be circulated among friends and family, the boy caved in when the group of men, most of them from influential and well-to-do families in the city, insisted he bring his girlfriend to them. Trying to protect himself, he offered his girlfriend, still in her teens, to a bunch of men who had just tasted blood. When the teenage girl arrived, she was raped, photographed and filmed like her boyfriend before her, and threatened, just as he was, that her pictures would be made public if she did not bring more of her friends.This was just the beginning. The circle of friends that started with two men being sodomised, turned vicious. It swelled, by local accounts, to more than 100 women who were systematically picked up, raped and blackmailed until they supplied the criminal gang with yet more victims to feed on. Even their silence and complicity, though, could not prevent their sexually explicit pictures from going public. They were leaked by a photo studio that processed the films; darkroom insights that spilt the beans on the dark side of Ajmer’s ‘friends’ circle and went on to become the city’s most widely circulated pornographic material. medium112799261How the prey were identifiedAs the chain of victims grew, so did the offenders’ confidence. In addition to women ‘referred’ to them, the original group of 18 also began preying on women in their neighbourhoods and extended social circles.“I was only 18 when this incident occurred, and I couldn't comprehend what was happening. I was enroute to a shrine with my family when I encountered my neighbour. He began talking to me, something that did not appear odd because he was a familiar presence in the neighbourhood. Then he led me to an abandoned building, raped me and then took me to the other men,” one survivor told TOI.The 10 men accompanying him, she said, took turns to rape her, while some photographed the sexual assault to be used to blackmail her later.“They restrained my hands and legs, muffled my screams with their hands. All the while, they kept clicking pictures, which remain preserved in court records. Eventually, they threw me on the road, thrusting Rs 200 into my hands and told me to buy a lipstick with it,” she said.With the men threatening to "kill her brothers with swords", she said she could not tell her family, and felt like killing herself.The survivor, who told TOI the physical and mental trauma left her permanently scarred, said, “No one knew the reason, but my mother tried everything, from medical treatment to seeking the counsel of religious saints and family to rid me of the desire to end my life. Nothing helped. A few years later, my first marriage was arranged, and I had hoped my life would return to normal. I came clean to my husband about what had happened and four days after we wed, he abandoned me. This even before the wedding ‘mehndi’ had faded from my hands," she said. medium nocaption112799234Never normalOf the reportedly 100 women who faced persecution at the hands of the 18 accused in the Ajmer case, most turned hostile during the 32-year long trial, preferring to shut the doors on a traumatic memory and build as close to a ‘normal’ life as possible. Six died by suicide. Only three of the witnesses who were raped stayed the course. The survivor who spoke to TOI said she returned to her maternal home and lived there for two decades after her first marriage ended, losing one family member after another to illnesses.A glimmer of hope came in the form of a love connection she said she had had six years after her first wedding. “I saw his photograph and told my mother he was the ‘hero’ I wanted to marry. He was the 'Anil Kapoor' of my life and reciprocated my love with equal fervour. The first two years were heavenly, and we welcomed a child into our lives. However, our harmonious life began to unravel when he became privy to whispers about my past circulating in society. It led to conflicts and after two years, he also abandoned me, while assuming the responsibility of raising our son since my family was not financially sound," she said.A decade after her second wedding, her husband filed for divorce. Though he died a few years later, she remains in touch with her in-laws and son.“Those two years were blissful. We took three trips together. But the past has a way of catching up. There were fights everyday fuelled by stories and chatter.”While juggling a past trauma and the upheavals of her marital life, the trial, which began in 1992 and kept yo-yoing back and forth, needed her to recount her ordeal, for the umpteenth time, as part of the investigation in 2021.“For years, I accompanied my uncle to courts and police stations to record my statements. After his demise, I stopped going. I once went with a police official too, but how many times should I repeat the same statements? On one occasion, I was asked to identify the accused. Suhail Ghani was standing right there, in front of my eyes. I told the court he was there when I was being raped. The defence lawyer, however, dismissed my statement. Such individuals deserve the severest of punishments. How long can they conceal the truth?” medium nocaption112799020Court verdictAfter a 32-year long wait, on August 20, 2024, he POCSO court in Ajmer, while sentencing the remaining six persons to life in prison, also mandated that the national legal aid authority give 16 rape survivors a compensation of Rs 7 lakh for the physical and mental anguish they endured.Though 13 survivors turned 'hostile', the court considered them eligible for compensation. The monies are to be paid out of a penalty of Rs 5 lakh the court imposed on each of the six convicts. In its order, the court said the Rs 30 lakh collected from the six convicts will be distributed equally to the rape survivors. Judge Ranjan Singh also directed the district legal aid authority to deposit Rs 7 lakh in the survivors’ bank accounts within 30 days of receiving a copy of the judgment.Prosecution storyPublic prosecutor Virendra Singh Rathore told TOI that the police recorded the statement of at least 30 victims, but in the chargesheet, allegations made by only 16 victims were mentioned.“13 victims retracted their statements during the testimony stage. Most of them testified that they didn't remember what happened and who committed the crimes as the incidents occurred a long time ago. They were declared hostile. Prosecution had to rely on the testimony of three other victims,” he said.Rathore, who represented the survivors from the time the case came to trial in 1992, said the magnitude of the sex scandal was unlike anything Ajmer, or even all of Rajasthan, had imagined. The accused, he said, were rich and influential, as were the families of many survivors. These were conservative times, still, and the social stigma attached to the horrific incidents prevented many families from reporting the case, and, in some cases, even saw them actively call for no police action against the accused. Scandal goes publicIn 1992, a local newspaper in Ajmer reported the sensational story that nude and sexually explicit photographs of at least 100 girls, most of them minors, were being circulated in the city. These, the report said, had become the basis on which the women were blackmailed and raped. The news shocked the city, but when the police swung into action, they recorded statements of about 30 girls and 16 of these were mentioned in the chargesheet. The prosecution presented 108 witnesses and 213 documents during the entire trial. medium nocaption112799285Long road to justiceIt took 32 years for the six accused persons in the Ajmer blackmail and rape case to be sentenced to life in prison. This, because each time an accused in the case surrendered or was arrested, the trial was suspended and proceedings had to begin from scratch after defense lawyers demanded their right to cross-examine prosecution witnesses.The latest sentencing involved six individuals including Nafees Chisty, Naseem Chisty alias Tarzan, Iqbal Bhati, Saleem Ghani Chisty, Sohail Ghani Chisty and Sayeed Jameer Hussain. They had each initially fled during the trial and were declared absconders by court. They eventually surrendered one by one, with Sohail Ghani being the last to surrender after 29 years.“Nafees Chisty and Naseem Chisty alias Tarzan were arrested in 2003. Iqbal Bhati was arrested in 2005, Saleem Chisty and Jameer Husain in 2012 and Sohail Gani in 2018," Rathore told TOI.The staggered arrests meant the trial against Nafees and Naseem that began in 2003 was halted when Bhati was arrested in 2005. All witnesses who testified for the accused arrested in 2003 also had to be recalled for cross-examination. In the interim, one accused approached HC, leading to files being sent for examination and delaying the trial further.This was not the only delay that delayed justice for the blackmail and rape survivors. Shortly after resumption of trial, Saleem Chisty and Jameer Husain were arrested in 2012. This resulted in the trial against the arrested three to be suspended once again. This time, Saleem and Jameer demanded their right to cross-examine prosecution witnesses.It was the same story in 2018. Sohail Ghani's arrest hit the pause button on the trial once again. In the meantime, more accused got bail as trials were suspended and one rape survivor after another began turning hostile.The trial against all accused persons finally began in 2018 and by 2020, when Rathore was appointed, his biggest challenge was to convince survivors, now settled in different parts of the country, to respond to summons and testify.With 18 accused involved in the case, 12 were awarded life sentences by a trial court in 1998, terms that were commuted to 12 years in jail by Rajasthan HC. In 2001, no progress in the trial even led to the acquittal of four accused. When the matter went to the Supreme Court in 2001, the court further reduced their sentences to 10 years. In the interim, while one accused committed suicide, another escaped while on parole. Ripple effect of the scandalThe victims of Ajmer’s blackmail and rape case were not the only ones who suffered the ordeal of endless questioning and persistent stigma. Prominent schools in Ajmer, of which many of these victims were students, were also branded.Prof Sister Pearl, current principal of Sophia Girls’ College in Ajmer, who was a student of one such school in Ajmer at the time the scandal broke, told TOI she was shocked, angry, and anxious.“We all got to know of the incident through newspapers. We were all anxious and angry. You could not blame the girls since they were only trying to save themselves. No one knew who had targeted them and that resulted in fear and anxiety,” she said.Sister Pearl said society was conservative in the early 1990s and even when newspapers were reporting the rape and sexual assault every day, the subject was not discussed openly. This incident, however, putting Ajmer at the front and centre of a national scandal, changed everything.“It only came to light through newspaper reports, and it was on the front page. Those pictures shocked us. Though our movements were not restricted, parents suddenly became overprotective as they worried about our safety,” she said. A city that had been peaceful for years, she said, witnessed a complete lockdown for almost 3-4 days when the case came to light.“This happened when there was no social media. Yet pictures were leaked and so many girls were traumatised. Schools were defamed though they had no role to play. Criminals needed to be punished, but institutions were defamed,” she said. Road forwardMany survivors of the case have chosen to stay behind the shadows. Even after the court verdict that sentenced the remaining accused persons to life sentence, few came forward to speak.The lone survivor who agreed to speak to TOI said she now hopes to rebuild her life with the aide promised to her by the POCSO court. Even after her second marriage ended in divorce, she continued to celebrate her wedding anniversary. She would dress up, get photographed, and distribute sweets. The last time she celebrated was before her husband died. Then the money dried up and under a burden of debt, she stopped celebrating the one day she says she remembers fondly. Maybe this year, once the money comes in, she will celebrate again. With inputs from Kshitiz Gaur