LACED WITH BAD INTENT

DOCTORS AND STUDENT COUNSELLORS ARE CONCERNED ABOUT REPORTS OF CRIMES INVOLVING 'DATE RAPE DRUGS'

- Sonali Acharjee

WHEN 17-YEAR-OLD SHREYA NANGIA (name changed), from Gurugram, graduated school earlier this year, she lied to her parents about attending a party at a farmhouse. Around 11 that night, when her parents believed her to be asleep at a friend's house, Nangia called them up in utter panic. "I had had a few drinks and was feeling extremely weak. This had never happened to me before and my instinct said something was not right," she says. "A few days later, I discovered that some boys had mixed drugs into the drinks. I know two girls who said they did not remember a single thing that happened that night. Now, they live in perpetual fear that someone may have videotaped them or done something far worse."

Cases of 'date rape' or 'acquaintance rape', in which the victim and perpetrator know each other, are not uncommon. According to police sources, in a large number of such cases, date rape drugs such as Ketamine, 'roofies' or GHB (see A Fact Sheet on Date Rape Drugs), which incapacitate the victim and render them vulnerable to assault, are sneaked into food or drinks. Most such drugs do not have any smell, taste or colour, and are thus difficult to detect. On June 3, a woman was found drugged and assaulted at a luxury hotel in Delhi. Last year, a Delhi-based student in Class XII went through a similar experience with a friend she had met online, who taped the assault and blackmailed her. More recently, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sonali Phogat, who was found murdered in Goa last month, is said to have been surreptitiously drugged by a few male companions.

Dr I.R. Rajkumar, medical director of Alpha Healing Centre in Vadodara, says that cases involving the use of date rape drugs are coming up more often today. Easily accessible through friends or at parties, he adds, "GHB, Ketamine, roofies are common 'party drugs' and you can easily buy them at clubs. They are cheaper than cocaine or heroin."