Md. Fakhruddin Rahmatullahi

A year ago, a Hindu woman studying at a college in Bhopal filed a police case against a college senior named Farhan that he befriended her under a false identity, and then drugged, raped, blackmailed and forcibly tried to convert her to Islam Soon after, several women from the same college came forward with similar complaints against different men Police found that the accused were part of the same gang and had the backing of a criminal named Shariq who is notorious in Bhopal by nickname ‘Machli’ Police found that the accused targeted Hindu girls in a coordinated manner - trapping one girl, then introducing her friend to another gang member, and so on They also facilitated opportunities for intimacy and then secretly recorded videos Two of the victims were sisters who had lost their parents long ago and were being raised in poverty by relatives. The scandal left them so shattered that one of them tried to kill herself and still bears a deep scar on her wrist The revelations were reported as ‘Bhopal sex scandal’ Such was the outrage over the shocking revelations that MP govt got Shariq’s house bulldozed, top police chief of MP got involved, women’s commission got involved, and several accused were arrested. They continue to be in jail The most important intervention came from NHRC member @KanoongoPriyank He closely monitored progress of the case, ensuring it was not diluted. Such was his impact that a close aide of Shariq once reached his office in Delhi and asked him to withdraw from the matter. Priyank Ji threw him out of his office. The incident was widely covered by the media Now comes his most significant intervention He conceptualised a program to educate college girls across Bhopal about this racket as well as legal and social support available to any girl who is trapped but either is not recognising it yet or is too scared to break free This program, named Sankalp, was taken up by @sewanyaya, run by @SanjeevSanskrit and me, and implemented through our partner @NetworkforJus We selected a group of women college students from Bhopal, trained them and deployed them to conduct large-scale awareness sessions across campuses In the past eight months, this group has educated over 8,000 girls across 100 colleges in Bhopal During the program, several who attended these sessions later reached out to the team privately and managed to get out of such situations, while three went on to file actual police cases. Yesterday, Priyank Ji and I were in Bhopal to mark the highly successful completion of the first year of this programme, along with MP Child Commission Chairperson Nivedita Sharma and the senior leadership of the LNCT Group of Colleges I also met the remarkable trainers, mentored by the superb @nidhikartikey and @SalujaSanat And I also met three victims of the scandal Their stories are disturbing and I will share them another time But I saw they have found their strongest support system and closest friends in the Sankalp team