Opinion | Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai - Three Brutal Rape Cases, 50 Years Apart
NDTV
It was 1973. Aruna Shanbaug was just 25. A typical Konkani, she loved fish. She liked to dress up a bit on weekends. She had recently watched ‘Bobby' and loved it. Perhaps because she was in love too. A nurse at Mumbai's premier King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital, Aruna was engaged to a young neurosurgeon doing his MD at KEM. They hoped to run a clinic together.
Her brothers were not happy as she was marrying outside her community, but they knew that Aruna's mind could not be changed. From a coastal Karnataka town just south of Goa, Aruna had upped and headed to Mumbai to study nursing when she was just 17. By 1973, she had worked at KEM for some years, and was known to be a ‘no-nonsense' professional. She had reported a wardboy and sweeper Sohanlal Valmiki for stealing and not working properly.
On November 27, while Aruna was on night duty, Valmiki sought his revenge. Choking her with a dog chain, he sexually assaulted her. So vicious was the attack that the chain cut the oxygen supply to Aruna's brain. By the time she was found the next morning, the damage was irreversible. Practically blind and barely able to utter a few incoherent words, Aruna's body and brain were reduced to a ‘vegetative state' overnight.
