The Horror And The Shame

A macabre rape-murder dents Hyderabad’s image as a safe city, highlighting the continuing national epidemic of sexual assault and the chronic failure of our criminal justice system

- Amarnath K. Menon

At about 6.10 pm, just as it was getting dark on November 27, Disha (name changed to protect identity), parked her red Hero Maestro scooter near the Tondupally toll plaza in Shamshabad on the Nehru Outer Ring Road (ORR) skirting Hyderabad. The 27-year-old veterinarian boarded a share taxi to Gachibowli, some 26 km away, to keep her appointment with a dermatologist. When she returned at around 9 pm, Disha was dismayed to find that her two-wheeler had a flat. The driver of a lorry parked nearby, Mohammed Arif, and his assistant, Jollu Shiva, offered to help. They persuaded her to allow Shiva to take the scooter for repairs.

Unsure as to whether she was doing the right thing, a tense Disha tried to call her younger sister. Even before she could connect, Arif offered to share his mobile number and dialled her phone to establish his bonafides and win her confidence. Twenty minutes later, when there was still no sign of her scooter, a worried Disha called her sister again saying she was still at the toll plaza waiting for her scooter.

“Keep talking to me until the scooter is back,” her sister told her. “They are all standing here...I am scared,” Disha whispered on the phone. Her younger sister advised her to abandon the bike and take a taxi back home in Nakshatra Colony. The six-minute, 45-second conversation ended when Disha hung up saying she would call back soon. That was the last time they spoke.