In a horrific incident, a woman was brutally and mercilessly raped by nine men for nine days. She was raped in her maternal house situated at Gardolli Village in Haliyal Taluk of Uttara Kannada district. The mother of two was on her way back home when the incident took place. Fed up of waiting for a bus which did not turn up for a long time, she accepted the lift offered by a stranger named Fayaz. Fayaz trespassed into her house without her knowledge and sexually assaulted her. Her parents and husband are dead and her children were at her brother’s place.

Fayaz forced himself on her and when she tried to fight him back, he overpowered her. After he sexually assaulted her, the next day two other men trespassed into her house, stuffed cake filled with the drug into her mouth, forced her to eat it and assaulted her. For the next consecutive nine days, the nine accused sexually assaulted her.

“On the night of February 25, I was waiting for a bus on Gardolli Road. My house is outside the village. A man named Fayaz offered to give me a ride while I was waiting at the bus stop. He dropped me till my house and I didn’t realize he had followed me to my doorstep. When I was about to lock the door, he pushed it open and entered my house”, the woman said. Every day when they assaulted her, one of them used to threaten her with a knife close to her neck. They told her if she screams they will slit her throat but the woman “had no energy” left in her to scream.

The accused namely Fayaz Mysorewale (23), Sadiq Bagewadi, Niyaz, Haroon Sarkavas (22), Sadiq Khan (25), Alif Syed (22), Jameel Desai (26), Illiyas Ankolekar (22) and Nasrollah Khan (23) sexually assaulted the woman every day. “The medical reports confirm that the victim was sexually assaulted. All the accused have been booked under sections 376D (gang rape), 354A (sexual harassment), 448 (house trespass), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC,” a police from Haliyal said.

“I was too exhausted to even wake up but I knew they were going to come for me so I screamed for help and some of the villagers came in and helped me. They were beaten up by the villagers”, she concluded. The villagers handed over the two accused they had beaten up, to the police. The other six accused were arrested the next day while one was arrested the day after.