Rape has become one of the most committed crimes in India. A rape victim is the target of the media and has to bear all the shame of the incident. The sad and enraging truth is that women, who are victims of rape, have been tormented and called names by political leaders and other influential people. They have to hide their faces and their only identity becomes the incident due to which their lives were ruined. The lady who was gang raped in the infamous Park Street Rape Case in Kolkata has finally come forward to unveil her identity.
Suzette Jordan has shown immense courage in finally revealing her identity publicly. In the month of February last year, while returning home from a night club, Suzette was offered a ride home by a new acquaintance. In the car, that person took turns with four other men to rape her at gunpoint. She was then thrown out of the car in the morning. Such a traumatic experience did not break Suzette down completely. She went on to lodge a complaint against those men. Life has been a battle ever since for Suzette who lives with her two daughters and her mother.
Even the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee has maligned her character publicly and claimed that she was doing drama to put her political party in a diabolical position. Suzette has been called a call girl and a slut and her house has been attacked by the masses. She has received several threat calls asking her to withdraw the complaint and stay silent. Suzette belongs to a well off family and used to go to parties. She is divorced. All these facts are not sufficient to be held against her character.
She herself tried to keep her identity a secret and requested the media houses not to publish her name in the papers. Rape is a stigma for women and the burden of that stigma they have to bear all their lives without any mistake of their own. Their voices are crushed under the feet of useless inhibitions and patriarchy. 16 months have passed since the incident took place and now Suzette has taken a firm stand. She has revealed her identity because she felt stifled, hiding away and living a life of denial. So far two of her rapists are still roaming free while three have been arrested and charged.
