Five years ago, a 13-year-old girl, the daughter of a poor working-class couple in India's least minority community, was assaulted by a neighbor.
The person accused of sexually abusing the girl has filmed this scene and Indian police are investigating whether the film was used to blackmail and manipulate the girl, leading to her being raped and sexually assaulted by dozens of other men and teenagers five years later.
The allegations were made when the girl, now 18 years old, spoke to a consultant who visited her university in Kerala and detailed years of horrifying abuse.
A total of 58 men and teenagers were arrested and charged with sexual assault, rape and gang rap in this case. Deputy Inspector General of Kerala Police Ajeetha Begum told CNN that two other men wanted for their involvement in the case have fled India.
According to the case documents reviewed by CNN and interviews with local police, the defendants included a classmate, relatives, and neighbors of the girl, ranging from minors to men in their 40s.
Detailed charges have not yet been filed and 58 men are still in custody. According to India's anti-rape laws, the girl's identity is not disclosed.
Last August, the rape and murder of a practitioner in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata fueled a nationwide strike by doctors, dragging tens of thousands of people to the streets to demand a policy change. However, the incident in Kerala did not lead to the same outrage.
Experts and activists believe that the cause is due to the victim being a member of the Dalit community at the bottom of the Hindu-class system - a social and religious degradation system that existed 3,000 years ago.
The police said that the abuse began when the young man in the village showed off his color as a girl and filmed and took portrait photos. At least three abuseors promised to marry the girl. Another person threatened to kill her if she reported the abuse.
Some men acted alone, but others were accused of gang rapes. Not all cases are related to each other. But in one case, there can be 4 or 5 defendants, police Begum said.
According to the police, many men contacted the girl via her father's phone, through social media apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp, late at night after the girl's father had gone to bed.
Abuse occurs in both private and public spaces, indoors and in cars, at bus stations and in the fields. Some cases involved strange men living in towns dozens of kilometers away. Some cases involved allegations of human trafficking because these men forced the girl out of the village.
The incident shocked the girl's village in Kerala. Police said the girl's parents had worked long hours and were not aware of their daughter's abuse.
According to the National Criminal Profile Office of India, there were 4,241 cases of women's rape against women of all classes in India, including female Dalit, in 2022, the most recent year for which data was available. This is equivalent to more than 10 rapes per day.
