raped..

-RAPED

Media was having a field day, TRPs where jumping through the roof-tops, eminent people were all ready for a byte and agitations were already in the pipelines. The Breaking News of the day had the making of a masala flick and channels were sparing nothing to cash it in. Not that they were complaining...

Station Officer was smug with compliancy; his police station has achieved the set target much before the dead-line and more importantly much before the other stations in the vicinity. The open and shut case has practically been handed over to him on a silver platter. Not that he was complaining...

The banners were ready, dyed and dried. Protestors all briefed about the course to be covered and how. Each ready with pamphlet and banner in red lettered with white. They were up for a cause and needed nothing more. With each decibel mount in the shouts for justice, coffers were brimming. Not that anyone was complaining...

Mice were having the time of their life and they didn’t have the time spare enough to complain. He seemed to be a rock statue rather than a living breathing man to them. The man still sat lifeless by the grimy cot in their dingy cell. He hasn’t moved a muscle since they had dumped him here, some seventeen hours ago. He didn’t look like someone worth the solitary confinement he was in, thought the mice once again taking a breath between their senseless gulping. He was still lost in the lost moment staring ahead into the darkness oblivious of the mice tumbling around, seeing nothing, thinking nothing, feeling nothing-not even his sore body or the blood soaking his shirt or the taunts doing rounds in the adjacent cells.

He was their villain and none had any sympathies to spare him, not even a trickle of it. The market was abuzz with murmurs laced with malice of the sharpest kind. Each was too eager

to shatter the podium and drag him down.

“See I told you he was way too slimy, nothing can be this good in today’s time” chimed Mrs. D’Souza.

“I tell you, you can’t trust anyone these days. Now tell me, is this what we send our girls school for?” added Mrs. Khanna.

“Bibiji, humhe to woh saab kuch ajeeb hi lagat rahe sharu se hi. Roz hamar laliya to kehat rahe shkool aaya karo. Achha hi hua humne kabhi ha naahi ki” grocer thanked his lucky stars

None was ready to wait for the investigation and proofs to reach their fated destination after all his was arrested fleeing the scene of crime. They have passed the judgment already and had had sentenced him to the gallows. It mattered to none, just how much he had done for them, their children and the society or how willing he always had been to help one and all or how law-abiding he had been all his life. He was their villain now, an animal and nothing more.

She still lay unconscious in one of the many sagging bed at the city hospital, they couldn’t even shift her to a better facility before completion of primary investigation. Every now and then a painful whispering sigh escaped her shattered body. The animal has used her ruthlessly for his own pleasure and then had left her for dead after having his way with her. Doctors had no hope for her or her family. She was all but dead for them and it didn’t matter to them anyway. She was nothing more than another number to them. Every once in a while a heart-wrenching sob echoed from the other side of the bed, where her mother sat helplessly watching life slip out of her own daughter’s body.

How they have craved for a girl child and yet every time they were given another boy. She had even lost the count of the temples that were visited, fasts that were kept and gods who were evoked; before she arrived to grace their lives. She was the very life of their lives. Loved and spoiled to the hilt. And now there she laid a step away from the eternal darkness, seeming all too willing to embrace it.

In one of the fastest trials ever, he was charged and found guilty of raping a minor. Prosecutor has his chest puffing with confidence with a case tailor-made for victory in his hands. Police had no trouble proving the charges with his fingerprints present all over the girl. Victory turned sweeter for all when he not only refused to have any lawyer defend him, but he himself sealed his lips numb. Not that it mattered to her family or him, not any longer.

She was lost in the darkness, she should have stayed back. It was too dark, too thick even to hide her own hands from her eyes. But she knew he was there pursuing her, so she ran. She was running faster then ever in her life, but somehow it just wasn’t fast enough for the beast was closing up on her. And just as his hands closed on her dress tearing it apart, she woke up with a blood curdling scream escaping her dried throat. She saw her mother staring at her as if she was a ghost and almost fainted again. But just then two strong arms closed around her tightly and she knew everything gonna be alright. She was safe, she has reached her home.

Party office was abuzz with ramifications of her statement; they had to damage control and that too at the very earliest. All were all but oblivious of the defeated man sitting in the dim corner. For once no one was looking up to him in awe, respect or even jealously; for longer he was the leader worth the lead. His mind was blank for one thought playing around on an endless loop, his can’t-do-any-wrong son had cost him his life.

After many rounds of discussions, accusations and back-biting they somehow managed to come up with a solution handy enough for everyone to agree. The Honourable Citizen of the State Award was announced for him for doing his duty and fulfilling responsibility towards the society. The resignation of their leader was personally submitted to the governor. The son surrendered to the police before a buzzing media. And police force was busy tackling the same agitators for a different cause. Everyone was busy in making the best of the situation oblivious of him and her.

The media was hoping mad with excitement to capture the first expression of his face, to record his first breath of freedom, to make life of their hero immortal in some fifteen minutes. The cell was forced open and it groaned its grievance at being disturbed for the first time in some three twenty one days. And in the camera flashes hung the stiff body of the national hero by a dirty rope to a fan that hadn’t moved in a century, every expression frozen in time, forever. The rapist was finally free...

-neh..

P.S. This one's for you "P", though am not as intense n in-depth as you in this genre.. but I still hope you like it.. enjoy reading..