NCRB data shows in 92% of all rape cases, the rapist could be someone you know and trust. NCRB data shows in 92% of all rape cases, the rapist could be someone you know and trust.

Every day the headlines unleash a new horror. On June 12, three boys take turns at raping a Class XII girl in the backseat of a moving car in Surat and record the act for perversity on their phones. Two days later, India wakes up to the news that actor Shiney Ahuja has been accused of raping his 18-year-old domestic help, who"s half his age and body weight.

On June 19, a 19-year-old college girl is gangraped after her boyfriend and his friends circulate an MMS clip they shot of their first assault. The same day, a 19-yearold English NGO volunteer is brutalised by two taxi drivers in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh. And on June 22, a woman from Inderpuri in India"s rape capital, Delhi, alleges that six policemen ganged up on her inside a police station in the afternoon. The datelines differ, the crime remains the same.

What drives a man, whether it is a seemingly successful actor or a group of testosterone-loaded young men, into such sexual violence? Are they motivated by lust? Or are they powered by their innate rage against women? Who are these devils in disguise?

An in-depth study by a Delhibased NGO, Swanchetan, of 242 inmates of Delhi"s Tihar Jail over five years unravels the mind of a rapist and shows that it could be anyone. More worryingly, as the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows in 92 per cent of all rape cases, it could be someone you know. And trust.

The facts that count Soft targets 9.5% of those raped were under 15

15.2% were girls between 15 to 18

57.7% were women in the age group of 18 and 30

17% women were between 30 and 50

Worse, 0.6%were over 50 In 92.5%cases, the offender was known to the victim 2.1% cases of rape involved a parent or a close family member

Neighbours were responsible for 36% of the cases

In 7.5% of the cases, relatives of the victim were involved The crime capital 68%of Delhi"s rapists were illiterates or school drop-outs

24%studied up to Class X

21.9% were graduates

80% of the accused were poor 20,737 cases of rape were reported in 2007, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, an increase of 7.2 per cent from a year before. 11% of the crimes against women involved rape. One of every four crimes against children is rape. 18% is the rate of conviction by courts even though the police managed to unmask the rapists in 68 per cent of the cases. Source: National Crime Records Bureau. All figures belong to the year 2007.

Most of the rapists studied by Swanchetan had committed multiple rapes"on an average at least four"before they were caught. They harboured an intrinsic hatred of women, habitually referred to them abusively, almost dehumanising them as objects of desire.

They had an insatiable desire to enact their sexual fantasies on the victims they targeted and would operate in different geographical locations, with a change of place adding a new thrill. No surprise then that over 70 per cent of them showed psychopathic traits, belying the belief that rape is a sick crime committed by sane people.

As many as 68 per cent of the rapists in the Swanchetan study had difficult childhoods, what Delhibased psychiatrist Jitendra Nagpal calls "extended paedophilia".

Mira Road rape accused Mira Road rape accused

Rapists are usually someone the victim knows. They have a history of similar sexual assaults, such as former reserve police constable Umesh Reddy, who was found guilty of over 20 cases of crimes against women, including rape and murder, and was awarded a death sentence by the Karnataka High Court in February after an 11-year-long judicial process. They also feel powerful in gangs, as the assaults in Surat and Mumbai show.

A gangrape has initiators who want all those who are witness to the crime to be party to it, so no one can report the matter, and they have followers, whom they force to participate. That"s what happened in 2005 when six men gangraped a 16-year-old girl in a DTC bus parked at a depot near Najafgarh in Delhi. Here two of the rapists took the lead; mercilessly beat up the girl as they raped her, while one of them was actually forced to assault her, despite pleading with the others to stop.

The rape sheet City Number of rape cases reported in a year

Delhi 530 Indore 74 Jaipur 62 Mumbai 177 Pune 67 Bangalore 62

Most rapists are found to prefer certain professions that allow them access to unsuspecting victims. It could be a teacher, doctor, administrator in institutions such as orphanages or even a spiritual guru.

Take the case in Delhi in 2003 when a 54-year-old doctor, married with two daughters, was arrested for having sex with a 13-year-old patient who had come to him for treatment of tuberculosis at a posh private nursing home in Vasant Vihar while her aunt waited outside. In 2007, a 44-year-old married private tutor in East Delhi bluffed a 17-year-old girl into having oral sex with him to help increase her concentration just before raping her.

This year in February a 15-year-old girl was allegedly held captive for two days and raped by her teacher, Ajit Kumar Singh, in Faizabad, in Uttar Pradesh. As Mumbai-based psychiatrist Harish Shetty says, no one is safe. "Anyone in power will target the vulnerable in this globalised world."

Is it any surprise then that India, in the midst of a frenetic social flux, should be one of the nations most unsafe for women, topped only by the US and South Africa, according to 2008 data from the Ministry of Home Affairs, even though Nagpal estimates that only a quarter of the sexual harassment cases are actually reported. It"s also no surprise that rape is one of the fastest growing crimes in India, with the number of rapes a day rising from seven in 1971, when such cases were first recorded by the NCRB, to 57 now, a leap of 800 per cent. In comparison, all other crimes have grown by 300 per cent since 1953 when the NCRB started keeping records.

Rape in India can become communal, as the Surat gangrape showed where the perpetrators were young Muslim boys, who were attacked by enraged people at the city hospital where they were taken for a medical check-up by the police. It can also be political, as happened in Shopian in Jammu and Kashmir when the bodies of 22-year-old Neelofar Jan and her 17-year-old sisterin-law Asiya were fished out of a nullah. It is always inhuman. And planned with cold-blooded precision, where psychological dominance is often preferred to brute force.

Sometimes such persuasion becomes easier when there is already a relationship of trust, as in 2007 when a 17-year-old was raped by her 21-yearold cousin in Ghaziabad. He bided his time, nurturing her emotionally, helping her with her homework and even advising her on adolescent issues, before he struck. Or a week ago in what is now known as the Mira Road rape case in Mumbai, where the main accused Parag Mhatre, allegedly wooed the victim for over seven months and even promised to marry her.

Cases that rocked the nation Gang rape by five policemen, Delhi

June 23, 2009 Accused: SHO of Inderpuri Police Station Pradeep Kumar and four constables. Details: Five policemen raped a woman, the wife of a local criminal involved in betting. She was taken to the police station ostensibly for an investigation on her husband. Current status: The police have registered a case of gangrape against the five policemen, but the identification parade is still to be carried out. Following widespread violent protests, the inquiry has been handed over to the Crime Branch and the SHO has been transferred. Rape accused actor Shiney Ahuja Rape accused actor Shiney Ahuja

June 14, 2009 Accused: Bollywood actor Shiney Ahuja Details: The 36-year-old actor was charged with raping his 18-year-old domestic help. His wife was not at home. Current status: While preliminary medical reports have indicated that Ahuja is the perpetrator of the crime, DNA reports supporting the theory have yet to come in. Ahuja has been remanded to judicial custody till July 2. Preliminary medical reports say that the actor was not in an inebriated state at the time and that he had minor abrasions on his forearm, which could, perhaps, be the result of a scuffle between him and the young woman. Rape accused Lal Sai Rape accused Lal Sai

2006 Accused: Lal Sai, a flamboyant godman of Bairagarh, a colony in the city"s outskirts. Details: On October 18, 2008, a teenaged engineering girl student alleged that the Sai had, sometime in 2006, offered her prasad laced with an intoxicant and raped her while she was unconscious. Current status: Sai surrendered on June 22 and has been remanded to judicial custody till July 7. The CID, which was handed over the investigations, is ready to file the chargesheet. Rape of a class XII student, Surat

June 12, 2009 Accused: Sons of police officers, Tariq Saiyad and Shahid Saiyad, and mobile repair shop owner Abu Bakr Shaikh. Details: The trio have been charged with raping a Class XII student. Investigations reveal that they raped at least seven other girls and recorded the acts, which Shaikh then sold as porn. Current status: The three are in police remand. The police say that on the basis of their admission during interrogation and narco tests, they will be able to prove that they kidnapped the girl and her male co-student posing as policemen and raped her in turns in a moving car. Mira Road rape case, Mumbai

June 19, 2009 Accused: Parag Mhatre, Umesh Bhoir, Dilip Patil, Hiren Patil and Pritam Mhatre. Details: Prime accused Mhatre allegedly befriended the victim seven months ago and promised her marriage. He took the victim and his friends to a lodge where they allegedly gangraped her. He then made an MMS of the act. Bhoir also featured in the clip. Current status: The accused have been remanded to police custody till June 29. Rape of Aus student, Mumbai

April 12, 2009 Accused: Six students, Vinamra Soni, Anish Borkataki, Harshavardhan Yadav, Jaskaran Singh Bullar a.k.a. Karan Singh, Kundanraj Norgonain and Dev Cyrus Kulabawala. Details: They have been accused of raping a 23-year-old girl who was enrolled in a short-term course in gender studies and development at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). Current status: The accused are in judicial custody. The matter is pending in the sessions court.



As Deven Bharti, additional commissioner of police, Mumbai (Crime Branch), puts it: "A rape is rarely an impulsive act.

"The rapist takes advantage of the situation, thinking the victim cannot overpower him, either mentally or physically."

Aus student rape accused Aus student rape accused

American psychologist Nicholas Groth, director of Forensic Mental Health Associates, who has examined more than 3,000 sex offenders in 25 years of practice, identified three kinds of rapes: anger, power and sadism.

The Swanchetan study follows closely, defining three types: violent, sadistic and fatal. It classified 45 per cent of the rape cases as extremely violent where the victims were dealt severe injuries with concussions on the body; in 15 per cent of the cases rapists indulged in sheer sadism, where they would get turned on by the victim"s struggles, while in 5 per cent of the cases, the rapist murdered the victim because of the fear that the matter would be reported.

As in one such case in Najafgarh in 2007, where the rapist covered the eyes of the victim with his hand while raping her at a construction site near her house. "I could see the pleading in the eyes, asking me not to kill her. It disturbed me," he says. In every case, the trigger is power, not lust. As women"s rights lawyer Flavia Agnes says, "It is difficult to decipher how the act of sex can be used as a weapon of humiliation and hatred."

The Legal loopholes The law as it operates, is insensitive and loaded against the victim, not the assailant. Rape is considered a behavioural crime:

The body of the victim is the site of the crime. It makes the investigation difficult. Registered under Section 375 of the IPC,rape cases require the victim to make the complaint in person and identify the perpetrator:

Those guilty can be awarded a prison term that can last up to 10 years. In some cases, a life sentence has also been awarded. But there are instances where the victims were shooed away by the police as they were alone. In Guntur, a tribal woman who was gangraped in June had to wait an entire day to file her complaint as the police did not believe her. Unlike the US where victims are encouraged to report such a crime directly to the police, the victim here approaches the family first. For the families who muster enough courage to report the matter,dealing with the police and doctors is a nightmare:

Usually, the police are insensitive, rude and oblivious to the victim"s state of mind. To establish rape, the victim has to undergo medical tests that can go on for four hours. The police have to be alert to false complaints:

In December last year, seven men of the Sashastra Seema Bal in Shrawasti district in Uttar Pradesh were booked for raping four girls. It took two weeks to prove that they had been framed. In 2006, an 18-year-old girl in Delhi filed a false report at the behest of her brother that her stepfather had repeatedly raped her. Confidentiality during the proceedings is another issue:

It is a common practice to announce the name of the accused in court where the victim must prove that the rapist sexually penetrated her.



The act is often now aided by the tools of modern technology which promise the illusion of fulfilment. The use of mobile phones to film and of the digital format to distribute have created a flourishing underground pornographic industry, which can be accessed at DVD libraries and in Internet cafes.

The corruption starts from the formative years where children start to internalise gory projections of violence towards others, either through bloodbaths in the big screen or on ever slicker video games.

"Screen exposure to violence leads to children becoming desensitised to inflicting pain on others," explains Nagpal. From there it can often be a short stop to becoming a rapist who derives sadistic pleasure in enforcing dominance over his victim.

Prashant Bhimani, a leading psychiatrist in Ahmedabad, can testify to 13-year-olds who watch porn on the Internet, compared to 10 years ago when this would be restricted to married couples or college youth. Says Bhimani: "On one hand, there is an urgent need for the Central Board of Film Certification to crack down on the excessive projection of sex on the screen while on the other, parents have to monitor what their children are watching at home."

Neo-conservative groups in America have readily available data to support this. According to the National Coalition on Television Violence, one out of eight Hollywood movies depicts a rape; and by age 18, the average American will have seen 2,50,000 acts of violence and 40,000 attempted murders on television.

Add to that the increasing emancipation of women, who are now in public spaces on an equal footing. In theory, at least, because often society is not equipped to protect the rights of these young women"NCRB data shows that over half the women raped were between the ages of 18 and 30. Even those younger are not safe.

In a case in Rajkot in May this year, a 15-yearold girl, Diyaba, who was working with a caterer, was hijacked by Dilavar, an autorickshaw driver whom she had hired. Two unknown persons later joined him and she was forcibly given an injection that put her to sleep. When she got up she found herself in a room in Ahmedabad. Thereafter, the three repeatedly raped her for 18 days before she managed to flee from their clutches. Dilavar was arrested but the other two are still absconding.

Profile of a rapist He has a deep prejudice

Rapists harbour great anger for women and usually refer to them with disdain.

Rapists harbour great anger for women and usually refer to them with disdain. He builds trust

Rapists prefer easy professions that give them access to the unsuspecting victim.

Rapists prefer easy professions that give them access to the unsuspecting victim. He plans meticulously

Rape is a well-considered act by the perpetrator and not an assault in the heat of the moment.

The assailant uses charm in targeting the victim and then acts decisively at the first opportunity.

Rape is a well-considered act by the perpetrator and not an assault in the heat of the moment. The assailant uses charm in targeting the victim and then acts decisively at the first opportunity. He targets the vulnerable

Rapists often target the powerless such as adolescents and mentally retarded women. They usually intoxicate the victim or control them by extreme use of force.

Rapists often target the powerless such as adolescents and mentally retarded women. They usually intoxicate the victim or control them by extreme use of force. Once is never enough

Rapists commit multiple crimes on varied victims and often change the geographical area of operation. They mostly home in on people they know. "Based on Swanchetan"s study on inmates of Tihar, Jail

What gives these men the courage to be cowards is the low rate of disposal of rape cases by the courts, with a pathetic conviction rate of 18 per cent according to NCRB. Even in the most publicised rapes, the assailants get away. Take the case of 2003 when a Swiss diplomat was abducted from outside the Siri Fort Auditorium in Delhi and raped in a moving car by two men.

It was a major diplomatic embarrassment with about a dozen policemen responsible for security of the area being suspended for dereliction of duty. Though the police carried out an extensive manhunt, even offering a cash award of Rs 6 lakh, the guilty were never caught. After five years, the police gave up, filing a closure report in December 2008. A conviction is pending in an even more high profile case.

In 2006, Sriram Mills scion Abhishek Kasliwal offered a lift to a 52-year-old woman in his car from south Mumbai. He took her to the mill compound in suburban Worli, where he allegedly raped her. Kasliwal was granted bail by the Bombay High Court after he spent a month in jail. The verdict is still pending even as the victim has testified in court. In the first set of DNA reports submitted by the Forensic Science Laboratory, Kalina, in Mumbai, Kasliwal tested negative. However, when the semen samples were sent for DNA fingerprinting and diagnostics to the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad, Kasliwal tested positive for rape. "There is no fear of law," says Shetty, "because even the tiny percentage of cases that get reported are not dealt with properly."

Take the rape and murder of a bright young Hewlett Packard staffer Pratibha Srikant Murthy in Bangalore. There is no closure for her even three years on though the case is in a fast track court. And this, as Pramila Nesargi, former chairperson of the Karnataka State Women"s Commission, says is just the edge of the wedge.

"For every rape victim whose case hits the spotlight, there are lots of women who are silent sufferers. Many of them don"t want to go public because of the stigma attached." Worryingly, there appears to be no stigma in being a rapist. In conversation with 39 Tihar inmates who were literate, articulate, belonged to the middle-class families, and convicted for rape, Swanchetan Director Rajat Mitra discovered that most of them "got a high just talking about it".

How can men learn to respect women with such a mindset of stereotypes? A recent study done by The International Centre for Research on Women suggests that 80 per cent of men from Punjab think violence is justified if their wives are "disrespectful" and 60 per cent if their wives "do not follow instructions".

Mitra speaks of a middle-aged politician who explained to him in a counselling session that he just couldn"t take a no from a woman. Once when he approached a woman at a party and bluntly asked her to have sex with him, he was not put off by her refusal. Instead three days later, with the help of his bodyguard, he broke into her house and raped her. "She did not resist one bit, nor reported the matter to the police, just left the city for good," he boasts.

Is the onus to be on women to remain alert and informed? Former police officer and criminology expert, Kiran Bedi, controversially argues yes. "In crimes like these where the perpetrator feels the compulsive need to act, it is the women, who are biologically vulnerable, who will have to avert such happenings. In 80 per cent of the cases, rape can be avoided, such as at rave parties where drugs and alcohol are doing the rounds. It is like walking into a trap.""

In an environment which fosters poor reporting of rapes, even shoddier justice and a deep rooted bias against women, is it any wonder that the mind of a rapist is often just a snapshot of everything that is collectively wrong?

"with Uday Mahurkar, Swati Mathur and Stephen David