JAIPUR, June 6: Graffiti painted in white on the walls of Jaipur's railway station provide an ironic comment on the J C Bose Hostel gangrape case. ``For Love Games - Mughal-e-Azam capsules''. ``For Menly (sic) Power - Mughal-e-Azam capsules''.For some, the incident was little more that a ``love game''. The case has come to dominate not just street conversations in the state, but Assembly proceedings. In fact, it has become one of the most politicised cases that the state has witnessed in recent times.And with good reason. Apart from the fact that the powerful Jat lobby has remained united in defence of the alleged rapists, with the 40-odd Jat MLAs in the state cutting across party lines hanging together on the issue. Two separate charge-sheets have been filed one dated September 5 charging those directly involved in the hostel incident, and the other filed on January 2 naming the men who had exploited the victim over the years. Nine of the accused are still to be traced, despiterepeated arrest warrants being issued. At least two of these absconders are very well connected - one happens to be an assistant director of industries, the other a son of an additional superintendent of police.Another man is yet to be chargesheeted, even though his name figures in the FIR lodged by the girl. He happens to be the son-in-law of a former Congress MLA. The father of the girl feels the police are dragging their feet for a purpose. ``Ten months have passed since the September 5 incident and so many of the accused are still free men. So they are free to trouble us. We have even been approached to drop the names of at least two of the accused.''He fears that the Rajasthan police are now anxious to present his daughter as a liar and thus help the accused. DIG Arvind Jain is cautious in his response. ``The victim's recent retraction appears to be the true version, but we cannot officially comment on it. Now that the case has been transferred to the CBI, it is up to them to investigate theactual circumstances of the May case.''The big question, however, is this: will the victim's second case have a bearing on the earlier one?Jain is certain it does not. ``One is quite distinct from the other. Take a situation where I, a honest man, turn into a murderer at a certain point of time. It doesn't mean that I was a murderer for all those years when I did not commit the crime.''Be this as it may, for the victim and her family it is going to be a long judicial battle ahead. Says the girl's father: ``What crime have we committed? It is they, those goondas, who followed us and hunted us down. I am a plain simple person. I can only hope that society supports me in this battle.''Bajwa understands the man's plight but knows that reality is always very complex: ``Society heard her story. Did it do anything to protect and support her? Did it help her family tide over the trauma they experienced? What about the systematic character assassination she was subjected to - both within theAssembly and outside? ''Most of all she needs time and space to heal. Says Shiv Gautam, professor and head of the department of psychiatry, SMS Medical College, Jaipur, ``I haven't examined her, but this I can say. She needs care not necessarily in terms of treating a mental disease but familial and social support in a spirit of plain humanity.''
