MUMBAI, OCT 11: On October 7, Titwala police arrested a 75-year old scrap-dealer for the sexual abuse of his teenage grand-daughter.
Safaat Mohammad Mughal's arrest and the subsequent interrogation by the police and investigations by Express Newsline reveal a horrific tale of incest and brutal abuse with the complicity of the family. It's a case that Vinita Chitale, a practising counsellor and ex-faculty member of the medical and psychiatric social department of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) calls the ``most bizzare'' and warns that such an instance is only the tip of the ice-berg that threatens the structure of the Indian Family.

On October 1, Safaat's daughter from his second marriage, Naseem Bano (35), came to visit her father. There she chanced upon her her step-brother Chand in a compromising position with his lover, a certain Abdul Rehman. When Naseem told her father and her step-mother Hanifabi (60) about the incident they dismissed it saying that they were aware of Chand'ssexual orientation.

Not satisfied with this explanation Naseem hauled up Chand who was married and ostensibly the father of one. As the fight worse on Chand shot back that it would be better if Naseem also spoke about her father's sexual exploits and went on to list them, including the abuse of his wife Saira and 15-year-old niece Nargis (not her real name)--the daughter of his elder brother Babu Dawood.

When a stunned Naseem Bano reported the matter to her elder step-brother Babu, he questioned his daughter whether she had been sexually abused by Safaat. When she admitted to being repeatedly raped, he lodged a police complaint against his step-father. ``His (Safaat's) heart must have turned to stone, but what hurts more is that my own mother connived with him in his crimes,'' said Babu.

Speaking to this reporter Chand said there was considerable tension in the household when Hanifabi married his step-father Safaat in 1975. ``Her sterilisation was kept a secret, and when he discovered it, it led tofriction. Babu and I used to watch helplessly as he beat my mother regularly.''

On her complicity in Safaat's crimes, Hanifabi said: ``My husband had started spending a lot of time in red-light areas, and I was scared he would get some disease. He always complained that I had not borne him a child, so I decided to get my younger son Chand married in 1981 (when he was 17) so that his wife could fulfil my husband's desires.''

Chand wed Saira (15), and according to Hanifabi, ``the arrangement worked well as Chand had no interest in women.'' She admitted that Saira's son Rafiq (9) was fathered by Safaat. ``After Saira came home his visits to prostitutes stopped, and I kept quiet because things had been sorted out,'' Hanifa noted.

However, Safaat also made advances towards his other step-son Babu's wife Banoobi. ``When I complained to my husband about it, he confronted Safaat and we stopped our interaction with my father-in-law's family,'' Banoobi said. By this time, Babu had already been thrown out of thehouse by his father who was ``always impatient with him,'' Hanifabi said. Babu has since been working as a casual labourer and also runs a wada-pav joint in Kalyan, where he lives.

``Still, without a regular income and with seven children, we were badly off. At times Hanifabi would drop in and offer money and food, which we were forced to accept,'' said Banoobi. Three years ago, Hanifabi offered to take their youngest daughter Nargis (then only 12) into her house. ``Since it would mean one mouth less to feed, we agreed. Hanifabi also promised to give us Rs 300 each month for the work Nargis would put in at the scrap shop,'' added Babu.

Nargis then went to live with her grandparents, where her abuse began. ``My grandparents and I used to sleep in the same room. But most night Hanifabi would leave us and go to sleep in the kitchen saying it was too hot in the room outside,'' Nargis said. She said that at first Safaat restricted himself to touching her but ``when I cried and threatened to tell everybody, hesaid he would kill me,'' she added. ``Later on he would muffle my cries with his hand and just rape me, unmindful that I bled each time,'' she noted.

Two years ago Nargis came close to telling her mother about this. ``I had gone to my father's house in Kalyan and refused to return to Ambivli when Hanifabi came to get me,'' she remembered. ``Both my grandmother and mother then thrashed me for disobeying them, and my mother reminded me of the Rs 300 I got every month. So I quietly came back,'' she said. Banoobi said she was unaware of her daughter's suffering. ``She had been sullen and quiet. When she was reluctant to return to Safaat's home, I thought she was just throwing a tantrum because she wished to play with her friends and not work,'' she said.

Assistant Police Inspector, B Y Bagale, of Titwala police, who is conducting investigations, refused to comment on why Hanifabi had not been questioned for her abetment in the crime. Safaat, now in Kalyan prison, has been charged under Sections 376 (rape),342 (wrongful confinement) and 506 (causing grievous hurt) of the Indian Penal Code.

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