SUTIA (NORTH 24-PARGANAS): It was a rainy, September night. The sun had just set and the people of Sutia had gone into their homes. Fourteen-year-old Suparna (name changed to protect her identity) sat chatting to her mother as she prepared dinner. Suddenly, a gang of armed men barged into their house. They leered at Suparna and went straight for her.

“I cannot count how many of them forced themselves on me. I still shudder at the memory of that brutal sexual assault. It gives me nightmares. I wake up trembling because I knew some of the faces. My father and brother were forced to watch me being raped again and again. My world crumbled that night,” Suparna told TOI on Saturday. That was 12 years ago. Her world crumbled again on Wednesday evening, when she learnt that ‘Barun Kaku’ had been shot dead. Teacher-crusader Barun Biswas had saved Suparna and scores of other women from a marauding band of rapists a decade ago. He was Mastermoshai to most but ‘Kaku’ to Suparna for whom he had a soft corner. She was one of the youngest victims of the Sutia serial gangrapes that had shamed and shocked the country.

Now, 26 and married, Suparna is expecting her first baby. She owes her new life to her kaku. On Saturday, TOI saw her weeping quietly on a muddy Sukia road that was once the hunting ground for the rapists. “Who will save us now,” she said. Thousands of residents were saying the same thing all over the gram panchayat area.

Barun’s crusade forced the government to crack down on the gang and five kingpins were locked away for life in 2003. Now, the people fear that a curse has returned after nine years.

Suparna recalls that a few days before her rape, the gang led by Sushanta Chowdhury and Bireswar Dhali had demanded Rs 50,000 from her father, who worked for a private company in Kolkata. The family had just started building a pucca house. When he refused, they threatened to give him a punishment "worse than death".

"My father tried to protect me when the gang pounced on me. But they hit him on the head with a gun. My younger sister, too, was beaten up and dragged out of the house. One of them shoved a pistol barrel into my father's mouth and forced him and my brother to watch as they took turns raping me. A chill runs down my spine when I remember that night," Suparna said. "They laughed and joked. I bore the pain and humiliation because I was afraid they would kill my father or rape my sister also. Mercifully, I fell unconscious after a couple of hours."

The neighbours locked themselves up in their houses because they knew that if they intervened, their womenfolk would also be raped systematically, regardless of age, to teach them a lesson. The gang did not let Suparna's father visit a doctor or attend office. He was confined at home for about two months until his wound healed.

"When Barun kaka started the movement against the injustice, he came to me. He encouraged me to raise my voice so that we could save other women from getting raped. He assured us that if we were united the gang would perish," said Suparna.

That is when she agreed to lodge a complaint against the gang. Her family and the entire village supported her. "What Kaku did for us was unthinkable. You only hear about such people in puranas and stories," she said. "Now, he has been eliminated. I do not know who will protect us," Suparna said.

Suparna was "lucky" that she was gangraped just once. Neighbour Kajol (name changed, and how in her sixties), lost count of the number of times she was raped. "It was nine years ago when the gang first raided my house. They raped me in front of my husband and son, who was a teenager then. When I resisted, they became furious and threatened to teach me a lesson for daring to speak up," recalled Kajol.

True to their words, the gang came back after a few days, with worse torture in mind. "One of them kept hitting me on my bare thighs with a stick while I was being raped. The pain from those blows keeps returning on and off. The gangrapes continued regularly for a month. Over the years I have got used to the pain but it is unbearable to lose a saviour like Barun. He was a son to every mother here," said Kajol.