Opinion Unnao survivor’s battle for justice goes on

Ican’t go back to where I started; this fight can’t end like this.” These words, uttered by the survivor of the 2017 Unnao rape, following the suspension of former BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar’s life sentence in the case by the Delhi High Court — five years after he was found guilty and convicted by a court in Delhi — carry a grim resonance. They’re a reminder of how, in a society with deeply entrenched hierarchies, even conviction can become just a temporary pause for the powerful, especially in cases of sexual assault.

This was a case defined by the impunity with which the politically connected accused, who had long held sway in Unnao district, acted. Right from the start, the system was weaponised against the survivor. After the rape of the young woman, who was a minor at the time, in 2017, there was an attempt to erase the crime: The assault was registered as a case of kidnapping, Sengar’s name was omitted from the FIR. For the survivor, getting the police to register a case against the influential local leader was merely the first obstacle. Right until Sengar’s conviction in December 2019, her life, as well as that of her family, remained shadowed by threats: In 2018, her father was assaulted by thugs for refusing to withdraw the case. He was then arrested on a fabricated charge, following which he died in custody.

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This is the battle that survivors of sexual assault have to fight, particularly when the perpetrators are shielded by power. The police refuse to record the truth, political goons act with impunity and the system grinds on, painfully slow and halting. Sengar may not be freed immediately — he is also serving a 10-year sentence for the custodial death of the survivor’s father. But the saga of the Unnao survivor paints a stark picture of how rocky the road to justice can be.