A 28-year-old woman, a mother of four young children, was allegedly gang-raped and tortured with foreign objects inside her own home in Begusarai district in Bihar.
The incident took place around 11:30 PM on June 11 in a socially and economically backward village of Begusarai. The survivor, whom we are calling Soma to protect her identity, lived with her husband, an e-rickshaw driver, and their children in a modest one-room house. The family’s bathroom was located outside, covered only by a cloth curtain for privacy.
Soma recounted the horrific sequence of events. She was in the toilet when five men forcibly entered the premises. The attackers locked her husband inside the main room from the outside, then overpowered her as she emerged. “They stripped me, gagged me, and tied my hands. When I tried to fight back, they slashed my chest with a blade and raped me,” she told the BBC.
Her husband initially dismissed the muffled sounds as noise from a stray cat. When he grew suspicious and tried to check, he found the door locked from outside. “He called a neighbour who came and unlocked the door and everyone saw my condition and began to cry,” Soma said. The accused fled the scene after the assault.
A Bullet Casing and Objects Recovered
The brutality inflicted upon Soma did not end with the gang rape. In the days following the attack, she complained of persistent and intense stomach pain despite being discharged from the hospital. A village midwife who examined her warned that something was lodged inside her body. On the morning of June 18, a live bullet casing dropped out from her vagina.
Her husband rushed her back to the district hospital where doctors conducted a thorough examination. Medical professionals recovered a stone and a piece of wood that the perpetrators had forcibly inserted into her private parts. Begusarai Civil Surgeon Ashok Kumar confirmed, “It was an empty cartridge or shell casing. We re-examined her and doctors removed other objects from her. She is currently stable and recovering.”
Police Negligence and Delayed FIR
The trauma of the assault was compounded by the response from law enforcement. When Soma’s husband carried her unconscious body to the nearest police station, about three kilometres from their home, officers allegedly refused to register a complaint. They advised him to seek medical treatment instead and turned them away.
The officer in charge of the police station, Rajiv Kumar, has since been suspended for what Begusarai police described as “negligence, apathy, and insensitivity.” A First Information Report was finally registered on June 13, two full days after the crime.
Begusarai Superintendent of Police Maneesh confirmed the developments. “The medical report has confirmed sexual assault. There are three named and two unidentified accused in this case. We have arrested two of them. A Special Investigation Team has been constituted and is conducting raids to arrest the others,” he said. Police added that some of the accused have prior criminal records.
Struggle for Medical Care
Soma’s ordeal extended to getting proper medical attention. On the night of the attack, a nearby private clinic turned her away, saying it did not handle emergencies and had no doctor available. She was eventually taken to a government community health centre and then referred to a district hospital. She was discharged on June 12 evening, only to return the next day after losing consciousness.
Soma told the BBC that she repeatedly informed doctors about the sexual assault. “The doctor asked me while administering an injection, ‘Were you raped as well?’ I kept telling her, ‘Yes, Madam, I was’,” she recounted. Hospital authorities maintain they were informed of the gang rape only on June 13, after which medical examination was promptly conducted.
A Nation’s Unfinished Battle
The case has drawn inevitable comparisons to the 2012 Delhi gang rape that sparked nationwide protests and led to stricter anti-rape laws, including the death penalty. Yet, more than 30,000 rape cases are still recorded in India every year. Anti-rape campaigner Yogita Bhayana said, “We have learnt no lessons. Such cases keep happening because the message has not percolated down to every last corner of India that rape can get them capital punishment. Fear has not been instilled in society.”
DSP Anand Kumar Pandey assured that the accused will be arrested and a speedy trial will be ensured. “If any negligence on the part of the police comes to light, action will be taken against the concerned personnel,” he said. Meanwhile, Soma remains in a hospital bed, in significant pain, worried sick about her young children being cared for by relatives 35 kilometres away. “I want to get back home to them soon,” she said.
