Long before the Nirbhaya case shocked the nation, it was the rape of a 13-year- old girl in a moving car in Lucknow that left the City of Nawabs stunned.
The case came to be known as the Ashiana rape case and the rape victim Zahira (name changed) fought an 11-year long battle against the accused, faced social stigma and even completed her education.
Zahira, now 25 years old, has a documentary on her ordeal. The 22-minute-long documentary by All India Democratic Women’s Association is being released on the fifth anniversary of the infamous Nirbhaya gang rape case and talk about struggles of rape survivors.
On 2 May 2005, Zahira, the 13-year-old daughter of a scrap dealer, was abducted when she was returning home. She was beaten up, tortured, burnt with cigarette butts and brutally raped in a moving car in Aashiana before being dumped on the outskirts of the city by six boys from affluent families.
Five of the accused were convicted after 10 years of legal battle. Conviction of the sixth and prime accused, Gaurav Shukla, came in April 2016 when he was sentenced to 10 years in jail.
Shukla had for long got himself declared juvenile. However, his claims were proved false in court and the case was fast tracked in 2015.
The grit, determination and turmoil of Zahira have been documented in the film that has been directed by Rishi Srivastava, convener of the Kalam Sanskritik Manch.
Titled, The Saga of Struggle, the story revolves around Zahira, the incident and her fight for justice against the accused who were politically well connected. It also attempts to capture the public movement and the many organisations that had joined the cause of justice for her.
State president of All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) Madhu Garg said, “It has been a tumultuous decade for the young girl but she has strongly fought through it all. She was ecstatic when she recently received her first salary ( Zahira now works for Mahila Samakhya, a women’s initiative). She offered us sweets and sent a major part of the sum to her father in Assam.”
AIDWA has been helping Zahira in picking up the threads of life and also in her legal battle.