As I sat in the congested Khar police station, in a strapped night dress, I left like a whore as people looked at me with judgment. Their eyes said it all.  It was Friday March 9, 2012 – my first visit to a police station as a victim of a crime of domestic abuse.

It happened on the occasion of ‘RangPachami’, a day when people splash colors on each other to celebrate the festival of Holi. It’s a festival that I  always enjoyed and was often was at the forefront of the celebrations in my locality.

However, this holi, was different. While it was just another occasion for my drunken husband to violently abuse me, something I had been putting up with for a long time by then, this Holi, I could only see one color – Red, and  something was  bound to happen..

I visited the police station for the first time –  I did not choose to do it, it was waiting to happen.

I had been dragged out of our marital  residence and out of the gate of a 22 storied apartment complex in a posh area of Khar, still in my night dress. Many saw – there were over 100 residents in the building, but none cared to intervene.

A festival is a hectic time for the police. There is stepped up vigilance against miscreants poised to create trouble as the festival reaches its climax. As luck would have it, a policeman who was present right in front of the gate, to  observe the festive vigilance, caught hold of me as I was about to fall. My husband ran away. 

He asked me in an uncertain tone, “Tho Kaun Kashala Marat Hota” (Who is he, why was he hitting you) – I said, “He is my husband”. He looked at me in disbelief and said , “Khara bol, Kaun tho –Husband! Tar mangalsutra kute ahe” – (Tell me the truth who is he, Husband! then where is the Mangalsutra). Despite the circumstances, I thought to myself, what the man  wants is for me to wear a mangalsutra to prove that I am married. Even though his mindset amazed me, I rationalized his question- Perhaps my young age made him doubt my words.

The policeman, who was around my father’s age, took to me to the jurisdictional police station in an auto rickshaw, which he found nearby. I was calm – something alien to me, and as we alighted at the police station, I wondered to myself as to what was going to happen now? What would they ask me?

I didn’t have much choice, so I followed the policeman in and was made me sit on a bench in the corner. I took a seat, looked around in apprehension, and came to face to face with my reflection in a mirror . I was astonished at my physical state. I had till then not given much thought to it.  I felt degraded as people in the police station gave me the ‘look’ and made me feel like a slut – I kept telling myself, “obviously I was not planning a visit to the police station.”

To my left,  three men drenched in festive colors, and drunk, looked at me and made remarks I could not comprehend.  Sitting opposite them was a police constable and right next to him was an empty desk, which I later came to know,  belonged to a sub-inspector.

The policeman  who had brought me there, started narrating my story to another constable, at a pitch that would have made an amplifier redundant.  He said in Marathi,  “This girl, I found her on SV road, a guy was hitting her, she says it was her husband”, then he suddenly looked at me and said, “Tell me is he your husband?”, the way he questioned gave me chills, I nodded. He said, “Wait here, we will register a complaint.”

Meanwhile another group came and their fight over a family issue spilled over into the police station. The four police personnel, all men, present at the station valiantly tried to resolve their issue. Left to myself, I was beginning to lose my mind.

I felt the phone the pocket of my nightie. As I pulled it out, I wondered whom to call. My parents would be devastated, if I told them that I was at a police station in the middle of the night. I decided to spare them the trauma. Who else? I felt going back would be a better option than being humiliated here.   I  called my father in law. He stayed a long distance away, around a 45 minute drive to the station. I  narrated the entire ordeal to him. Considerate,  he left the instant I asked him to come and pick me up, but the reality was, I would have to spend another 45 minutes at the minimum at the station, something I was not looking forward to.

The Sub Inspector, who had by then, returned to his desk settled the family dispute and turned his attention to me. He heard my story and directed the constable to register my complaint.

I sat on the chair opposite to a police constable; he pulled out a register and started writing in Marathi.  “Bola”, (Say),  the constable said in a loud tone and I started!  Once started, there was no holding back, all the suffering, the bitterness, the beatings, the abuse came pouring out. “He forced me into this marriage, and I don’t want to stay with him”, I  cried and I blabbered at  the same time. I had controlled my emotions for too long .

He showed compassion. He enquired about my parents. I paused. My parents thought I was happy. They may have had an inkling of what I was going through but I didn’t want to confirm it. It was a reality check for me.  I stopped crying at once.

At that moment, my father-in-law entered. A well known personality in the area, a builder by profession, he told the inspector,  “she’s my daughter”. To me, he said, “ lets go”. Quickly he convinced them and me to drop the complaint and soon we were ready to go.

It was my first experience of a police station – as a victim of a crime – and I felt both protected and humiliated at once. An unpleasant, necessary, and learning experience that was to guide my future actions in the matter.

A true story of Sangeetha (name changed) as told to News Karnataka correspondent