In a shocking development, a female JNU student has accused Talib Hussain, the activist, who led protests against the Kathua gang-rape and murder, of raping her and then promising to do nikaah with her.
The JNU student wrote an anonymous blog on Firstpost website to recount her horror. She said that immediately after the gang-rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl in Kathua, this ‘activist from Jammu rose to prominence as an anti-rape crusader leading the cause of justice for the Kathua rape victim.’
She wrote, “Even before the chargesheet was filed and the details of the grisly case had begun to surface on social media, this activist was invited as a speaker on different platforms including student leaders’ conventions in universities such as JNU, AMU and MANUU.”
She wrote, “This man came to JNU as an invited speaker on March 27. After that day, he kept in regular touch with some of the students who had invited him. Those of us who were closely following developments in the case were also concerned about his personal safety; due to his activism, he was attacked in Udhampur on April 13. Thereafter, he returned to Delhi in mid-April to get an order ensuring his police protection passed by the Supreme Court. At that time, he also visited JNU campus to meet and talk to his new acquaintances.”
She continued, “I was one of those students who had invited him to JNU campus. But subsequently, in his personal conversations with me, he proved to be very invasive of personal boundaries. He asked me a lot of questions about my family, my research work, and my political beliefs. I would not have minded any of this had he not abruptly asked me one day to do “nikaah” with him. This was in mid-April, just after his second visit to JNU. I told him that it is a very inappropriate thing to ask me. But he did not stop calling me. Often he would call me late at night; while I enquired about his safety and whether he had been given adequate protection from possible attacks, he would ignore my concerned questions and describe his sexual fantasies about me.”
On 27 April, the anonymous JNU student wrote, Hussain messaged her to say that he would be arriving in Delhi that evening and that she should meet him. She wrote, “I did not want to; instead, I went out for dinner with some of my friends. But he called me and insisted that he would come to JNU itself to meet me…. he kept calling me non-stop, insisting that I should return to campus at once because he was waiting outside the north gate for me. Despite my explaining to him the seriousness of the situation on campus, he persuaded me to leave my friends and see him. He called me 40 times that night (I noted this on my call log the next day).”
The student wrote that she finally gave in and agreed to meet him. After she arrived at the JNU gate, Hussain allegedly asked her to get inside the rented car he was sitting in.
“He asked me to get inside the car and I obeyed him. After half an hour’s drive, at 12:30 AM, we reached a lane in the Batla House locality. My feeling of ominous unease had peaked by now but there was no way I could escape; I found myself in unfamiliar surroundings late at night and the only way forward was in the direction my predator took me. He ushered me into a one-room flat on the second/third floor of a building. I knew what was going to happen next: he would demand sex from me, I would refuse to give consent, and he would end up raping me. My fears turned out to be right,” she continued.
She went on to write that she even threatened to expose him to her friends in JNU. She added, “I pleaded with him, I even physically wrestled against his brute strength; but my resistance seemed too frail compared to his brutality. I remember crying in pain; but instead, he mocked me, saying Tum bohot naazuk ho. All the while he raped me, he kept insisting that he would do nikaah with me, as if by declaring his intention to marry he would legitimise what he was doing.
“I was in great pain after that night; consultation with gynaecologists revealed that I had suffered an anal fissure. The injury remained for at least two weeks; during this time my pain and anger made me muster the courage to confront my rapist and demand that he acknowledge his crime. But his response was typical: he did not INTEND to hurt me, he had made a mistake, and why had I not stopped him then?”
Hussain was arrested in a separate rape case in August this year. He was granted bail earlier this month after spending more than two months in custody. Hussain’s wife had earlier filed a complaint on charges of domestic violence and attempt to murder against him. However, a high court bench in Srinagar had stayed proceedings in the FIR, reported Indian Express.
You can read the full blog here.