Suryanelli 1996-2013 - Seventeen long years of trauma for the victim and family

Suryanelli 1996-2013
http://www.asianetnews.tv/suryanelli/

Suryanelli is a sleepy village near Munnar  in the High Ranges of Idukki District, of Kerala, bordering Tamil Nadu, India.
On January 16, 1996, a Postmaster and his nurse wife found that their youngest girl, a school student aged 16,  did not return from school. She was found missing. They approached the police and ran from pillar to post for 40 days to get some information on their missing child and to trace her. After 40 days their child returns in a physically and mentally devastated state. She was gang-raped by 42 men during that period.  On medical examination her private parts were bleeding to the touch.

The teenage girl, a victim of abduction, sexual slavery, gang-rape and prostitution, was studying in the 9th Std in a school nearby. She was abducted by Raju, a bus-conductor, who trapped her feigning love. After raping her, he sold her to a pimp Usha. Usha and her associate Dharma Rajan, an Advocate then kept the girl in illegal confinement under threat of death and transported her from place to place in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and sold her to be gang-raped and prostituted by 42 men.

35 of those who sexually abused her were convicted by the Sessions Court, Kottayam in 2000.  But the High Court of Kerala acquitted all of them except Dharma Rajan. In an appeal filed by the State in 2005, after eight long years, the Supreme Court in January 2013 set aside the acquittal of the accused and directed the High Court of Kerala to re-hear the case.

Though the victim girl alleged that she was also raped by a Senior Congress leader in a Government Guest House where she was taken by Dharma Rajan and Jamal, the police believed the leader's alibi instead of the victim's version and did not proceed against the politician.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATo_WMCuDmo

The parents
The parents of the victim speak of the sufferings that they went through and about their traumatic experience for 17 long years. They have suffered and still suffer ostracism from relations, friends and society at large and they live a secluded life, with two daughters, the victim now aged 32 and her elder sister. No one is ready to marry them.  Just before the case came up for hearing in the Supreme Court, the victim girl who has been working as a peon in a government agency (State Commercial Taxes Department), was framed by her superior officer in a misappropriation case and was forced to remit the misappropriated money, under threat that she would be arrested by the police. She sold her gold jewels and withdrew money from her savings and remitted the money, though she had nothing to do with the alleged misappropriation of funds. The interview exposes the corruption in the police and their unhelpful attitude. The family even thought of committing suicide. But better sense prevailed and they decided to fight it out against an unjust system, with strength from the God in whom they believed.
http://www.asianetnews.tv/latest-news/4717-suryanelli-parents-in-point-blank-part-one
http://www.asianetnews.tv/top-news/4710-suryanelli-parents-in-point-blank-part-2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GOlPP4IgAjc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ddS7741n5n8

The victim
Here is an interview of the victim and the trauma she has been undergoing for the past seventeen years. This is her heart-breaking story after 17 years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Kqr8f4hy8


-Joseph Ponnoly