The Good Girls

by Sonia Faleiro

  Investigating Officer Shukla knew people well. He knew, for example, that some fathers wrapped infant girls in soaking wet cloths or fed them salt or abandoned them in the middle of beating hot fields. If the girls survived, they were ignored, left to grow up or not. They were not treated like people, they were herded like animals. They were not loved. But Padma and Lalli, it was clear to him, were loved.

  The investigator did not believe, as some did, that their parents had killed them. The fact that they had counted on Nazru – of all people – to stick to his story, only confirmed to the investigator that the family was too naive to commit a real crime. But with their constantly changing stories, the Shakyas were wasting his time.

  It wasn’t long before Nazru also accepted that he had lied. His cousins, he told Shukla, had paid him to say that he witnessed the kidnapping of Padma and Lalli by a group of people – among them, Pappu Yadav and his brothers. He was also told to say that Ram Babu was with him at the time.

  ‘It wasn’t true,’ Nazru said. ‘I only saw one person that night with the girls. And that person was Pappu.’

  Purity and Pollution

  The relationship between the Shakya brothers and the CBI deteriorated quickly. The brothers told the media that investigators hounded them for interviews, but that when the brothers arrived at the field office in Budaun, they were kept waiting for hours. They were even kept hungry. ‘All they ever gave us to eat were a handful of samosas.’ They were handed scores of letters when it should have been perfectly obvious that they couldn’t read.

  After the initial courtesies, they alleged, the investigator Shukla no longer bothered to give them updates on the case.

  Shukla had a different take on events. He was now aware that the Shakyas’ complaint to the police was fabricated. By implicating Pappu Yadav’s brothers, and producing a fake eyewitness, the family had undermined their own credibility. They claimed to want to know what had happened to their daughters, but everything they did suggested that they were planting blame. ‘Their conduct,’ Shukla said, ‘was not the natural conduct of parents.’

  Sohan Lal was a particular source of aggravation. Time and again he begged off answering questions on the excuse that he didn’t speak Hindi. Sohan Lal’s first language was Braj Bhasha, but he understood and spoke Hindi, of that they were sure. They had seen him give numerous interviews on camera.

  ‘We’re speaking simple Hindi!’ Shukla said.

  The repeated refusals to answer questions became enough of an issue that the matter was kicked to a higher-up. This officer told Shukla to download a video of one of Sohan Lal’s television interviews. ‘Isn’t this you?’ Shukla asked, showing Lalli’s father such a clip. ‘You can speak to the media in Hindi, but you can’t answer our questions?’ Sohan Lal bowed his head, brought his palms together in a gesture of apology, and called Shukla sahib to show his deference – but neither man now liked the other.

  Shortly after, when Shukla decided to take a closer look at the post-mortem, he didn’t immediately inform the family. There was a clearly established chain of information protocol – victim’s family first, always. By breaking protocol, the investigator made it clear that the family had lost his trust.

  When the Shakyas learned of his plans, through friendly media tipped off by someone in the CBI, they were taken aback. The post-mortem report, which they now had in their possession, had declared the cause of death as hanging. They had been told it meant murder. What new things did Shukla expect to learn?

  The pressure on the police, while they had been in charge, had been intense – and they had wanted to make it clear that they really were trying to put all their energy and resources towards working the case. Just to be sure, they had sent the post-mortem video to the state capital, Lucknow, and had asked the Forensic Science Laboratory, FSL, for a second opinion.

  On 4 June, two days before the CBI investigators took over the case, a consultant medico-legal physician at the FSL called Dr Ghyasuddin Khan shared his findings. He concluded that the girls were smothered to death, and then hanged. He wrote that ‘the video of PMR [showed] scientific techniques [had] been avoided.’ The post-mortem team had barely even taken samples, he complained.

  The CBI also had some other concerns. There was the phrase ‘suggestive of rape’. And then, there was a startling piece of evidence that established not merely a lack of familiarity with protocol, but with the administration of post-mortems themselves.

  On top of all this, there was the fact that Lala Ram – a sweeper, with no medical qualification to his name – had examined the bodies. This should have been reason enough for the CBI to rubbish the results. It wasn’t, because the agency knew that people like Lala Ram routinely examined the dead.

  There were so few pathologists in India, medical doctors were asked to do the job. Knowing they were not equipped to do so, many refused. Hospitals then claimed that they had no choice but to turn to one of the Lala Ram-type figures who roamed the corridors with a broom in one hand and a dustpan in the other.

  The obvious outcome, as a campaigning professor of forensic medicine told The Times of India, was that post-mortem houses were really ‘production-line abattoirs’140 in which bodies were carved up. Families were left distraught and the police were denied the expert medical statement that was the backbone of a criminal death investigation.

  One reason for the shortfall was a deeply embedded Hindu prejudice against dead bodies. Cadavers were seen as dirty things, whose touch was polluting. Those who touched them were also considered polluted.

  The first post-mortem by an Indian in India was conducted on 28 October 1836 in Calcutta, at a modern hospital built to train Indians to help doctors of the British Army. Hindu pandits, having come to know of this plan in advance, took up vigil at the hospital entrance to ensure that no dead bodies came in.141

  It was a full year before secret plans to smuggle in a cadaver were put in motion, and even then, the body had to be dissected in an outhouse. The lead doctor, Madhusudan Gupta, was an upper-caste Hindu, a former ayurvedic pandit and assistant to a professor of anatomy. Several medical students reportedly assisted him, but the college principal refused to reveal their identities to protect them from ostracism. The British celebrated the occasion with a fifty-round salute, but many Hindus were revolted.

  The task thereafter usually fell to Dalits, people who were relegated to the outcaste group. They were already made to do work that was designated dirty, such as skinning animals and cleaning toilets. And they were already forced to live in ostracised communities. By insisting that they alone handle the dead, caste Hindus further stigmatised the process in the eyes of the wider community.

  In the years since, the caste system had prevailed, and Hindu notions of purity and pollution continued to be observed at home and work. As a result, so did attitudes towards the dead, even when they came in conflict with science.

  The CBI knew that they would have a fight on their hands if they dismissed the post-mortem on the grounds that it was performed by a sweeper. Who else would do the job, the villagers would say?

  Instead, they said a difference of opinion had made it necessary to take a deeper look at the examinations.

  140 ‘production-line abattoirs’: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Forensic-expert-seeks-end-to-abattoir-style-post-mortems/articleshow/45959581.cms

  141 Hindu pandits … took up vigil: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/175-year-old-dissection-papers-unearthed/articleshow/7272410.cms

  A Post-mortem Undone

  The agency now summoned the post-mortem doctors and asked them again how the girls had died. Did they die by hanging, were they smothered first and then hanged or did they die in a different way?

  There was no sign of struggle, Dr Rajiv Gupta, who had led the post-mortem, told investigators. The girls were ‘not so young’, he said. And they were ‘quite developed’. He
used the word ‘stout’. If an attempt had been made to smother them, they would have fought back. The struggle would have left an imprint in the form of scratches, splintered nails and broken bangles. And even if not, the signs of smothering were unmissable – bruising around the nose and mouth, for ­example – and he hadn’t missed them.

  The suggestion that the girls were smothered was laughable, he said, and Dr Gupta did in fact laugh out loud when recounting the interview later on.

  ‘First the rape has been done, then the smothering has been done. Then they’ve been hanged to death?’ He snorted. ‘No. Simplicity is always truth.’

  Although he didn’t say as much in the report, he now told investigators that the girls were alive at the time they climbed the tree. And they had climbed it themselves. The girls’ bodies, he reminded them, were virtually pristine. ‘How can you hang a live person on a tree without any struggle? It’s not possible.’

  To show the investigators that he knew what he was talking about, he then went through the post-mortem videos with them. But unfortunately for him, he came out looking somewhat the worse for it.

  In Lalli’s post-mortem report, Dr Gupta had described the skull as ‘congested’. But it was clear, from watching the videos, that he hadn’t opened the teenager’s skull.

  At first he insisted that he’d ordered Lala Ram to do so. He claimed that if the man forgot it was because they were under tremendous pressure from the waiting crowd. Later, when the question was put to Lala Ram, the former sweeper was adamant that the doctor had made no such request.

  ‘Everything was done very quickly,’ he said.

  Finally, Dr Gupta confessed to his mistake. ‘We have not opened the skull,’ he said sheepishly. ‘The observation about the brain has been wrongly recorded.’

  Dr Tripathi, the general practitioner from the District Women’s Hospital, was then called in to explain her statement regarding the rapes – or, as she had put it, that the injuries she saw on the girls’ bodies had seemed ‘suggestive of rape’. She had noted ‘clotted blood in and around [the] vaginal orifice’ and an ‘abrasion’ in her report on fourteen-year-old Lalli. These findings had led her to believe that the girl was sexually assaulted.

  Investigators now asked her to lean in so she could take a closer look at a photograph they had for her. This was the piece of evidence that had confirmed to them that the post-mortem results were in fact faulty.

  What did she see?

  A blood-soaked piece of cloth stuck to the inside of a pair of panties.

  What did it look like?

  ‘This piece of cloth looks like a sanitary pad used by females of villages during menstrual periods.’

  Another group of forensic scientists, this time in southern India’s Telengana state, who had been sent the children’s clothes for examination, had discovered the item in Lalli’s underwear.

  Had Dr Tripathi seen the item on the girl?

  No, she replied, ‘I did not examine the undergarments.’ Lala Ram had removed the clothes and she hadn’t asked to see them.

  ‘Can you comment on the source of the blood?’

  ‘I am quite certain that this was menstrual blood.’

  ‘You had mentioned “haematoma present over hymen.” Did you examine hymen in this case? And if yes, what was the condition?’

  ‘I examined hymen in this case which was found intact although I had not mentioned it.’

  ‘Since hymen was found intact and she was in menstrual phase, is it possible that you had misinterpreted the finding?’

  ‘Yes …’

  The ‘abrasion around hymen’ she went on to explain, was a scratch. ‘Since it was very small, I did not measure it … It is quite possible that it could be caused by self-scratching owing to itching especially during menstrual period.’

  ‘Would you like to modify your opinion?’

  ‘I submit that it was a misinterpretation on my part to label it as rape during post-mortem examination. Therefore, I am of the opinion that there were no signs of recent vaginal penetration/sexual assault in this case of deceased Lalli.’

  Lalli, she now said, hadn’t been raped.

  The investigators then pulled up Padma’s post-mortem report. Dr Tripathi had noted a tear in the sixteen-year-old’s genital area, had she not? Was it new or old?

  There were no signs of inflammation or bleeding, she replied. ‘It can be concluded that this tear was old and healed.’

  ‘You had mentioned that hymen was bluish and oedematous. Do you know that this discolouration and turgidity can be found in a female consequent to prolonged suspension of body?’

  ‘No, I don’t have much knowledge of forensic medicine.’

  ‘Did you rule out that this bluish discolouration of hymen was post-mortem staining since body remained suspended for a period of more than twelve hours. If yes, then how?’

  ‘… due to lack of knowledge. Moreover, the lighting was insufficient … since PME was conducted during night hours which might have led to wrong perception.’

  ‘Would you like to modify your opinion?’

  ‘I am fully convinced that it was misinterpretation on my part to label it as rape during post-mortem examination. Therefore, I am of the opinion that there were no signs of recent vaginal penetration/sexual assault in this case of deceased Padma.’

  ‘Habitual of Sexual Intercourse’

  Dr Tripathi had been unclear on the question of whether the girls were raped, but one of her male colleagues on the post-mortem team had lied. They had one job and they failed to do it. And yet, it was she alone, the only woman on the team, who felt humiliated enough to withdraw from the public eye. Her colleague, Dr Rajiv Gupta, sometimes spoke on her behalf, mostly to explain where she had gone wrong.

  She had examined many rape victims, he said, but she had never conducted a post-mortem. Without a live victim to clarify matters – the age of a scratch, for ­example – she had misinterpreted the physiological changes that come in after a prolonged hanging. ‘The people standing outside were shouting “rape hua! rape hua!” ’ said Dr Gupta. ‘And the police asked if the girls were raped. She had to say something.’

  To draw a full criminological picture, post-mortem findings are correlated with forensic reports. For this, there have to be samples to examine – from the scalp, vagina, pubic area, anus, rectum and mouth, samples of blood and saliva and of any foreign substance that is found on the body. The rule was to take as many samples as possible. Dr Tripathi had only sent in one set of samples, from the vagina.

  A trifecta of missteps, which had started with a delayed investigation and then a contaminated crime scene, was now complete.

  The agency was still faced with contradictory causes of death. Dr Gupta had described the asphyxiation as suicidal. But the report from the lab in Lucknow said that the girls were smothered – suggesting that they were killed. On another case the investigators would have accepted the prognosis of the doctors who had conducted the post-mortem over someone who had watched two tapes. But Dr Gupta and his team were no longer credible. The agency decided to exhume the bodies of Padma and Lalli.

  Second post-mortems weren’t all that unusual in high-profile cases, especially when it was clear that the initial team had botched the job. There might even be a third one, as had been the case with Scarlet Keeling, the fifteen-year-old British tourist who had been killed after a Valentine’s Day beach party in the palm-fringed western state of Goa in 2008.142

  A first post-mortem led by the state police claimed that the teenager had drowned after drinking. On the insistence of Keeling’s mother, a second post-mortem was then carried out. This time the team found more than fifty cuts and bruises and evidence of sexual assault. The police walked back their earlier conclusion, saying that the teenager had been drugged, raped and murdered. The body was repatriated to Britain, where an attempt to perform a third
post-mortem showed that some internal organs – Keeling’s uterus and parts of her liver and kidney143 – hadn’t been put back.

  The case went to trial in Goa and, given the half-hearted manner of investigation, it came as no surprise when the accused were acquitted. In 2019, the High Court overturned the ruling and sentenced one of the accused to ten years ‘rigorous imprisonment’ – jail plus hard labour.144

  In late June 2014, the CBI called in professors of forensic medicine at a top government hospital and medical college in New Delhi. This latest team of doctors, from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, was asked to adjudicate on the matter of whether the girls were raped and how they had died. Then, in direct contravention of government guidelines introduced in the aftermath of the 2012 Delhi bus rape, if the girls had been sexually active. The exact question put to them was ‘whether any of the victims were habitual of sexual intercourse’.

  This ugly phrase was a familiar presence in post-mortem reports as well as courtroom trials. It was used to dispute the account of rape victims who were sexually active at the time of their assault, by attempting to show that they were trying to pass off consensual sex as rape to protect their honour. Sometimes the argument was introduced to create a character profile of a ‘loose’ woman. A woman who may as well have asked to be raped.

  It even showed up in legal judgments. In 2002, a court in the eastern state of Orissa set aside the conviction of a man charged with rape on the argument that ‘the medical evidence supported by [the alleged victim’s] physical features revealed that she was habituated to sex … Though there is no apparent motive for Ms X to falsely implicate the appellant,’ stated the court, ‘it may be that Ms X must have changed her mind when she came to know that others must come to know of her conduct.’145

  To determine whether a rape victim was sexually active, some doctors carried out a virginity test known as the ‘two finger test’. It was exactly as invasive and humiliating as it sounded. They checked the condition of the hymen and the vagina with their fingers, even though they should have known that neither offered conclusive proof of virginity. In 2013, the Supreme Court was forced to intervene, describing the test as a violation of ‘privacy, physical and mental integrity and dignity’. An affirmative report, it said, which claimed to know that the victim was sexually active, was not proof of consent.146