We walk the alleys of a Govandi slum to slip into a paedophile's twisted world of lust and loneliness
At Umarkhadi, a Govandi slum crammed with weatherworn chawls, scrap metal sheds and a rash of slaughterhouses, the air is dense with highway traffic soot and the stench of Mumbai's largest dumping ground, simmering on slow burn in its backyard.
Niyaz Ahmed Hasan Raza's mere mention draws swarms towards us, yet few will talk about him. For a frail 70-year-old widower battling tuberculosis and poor appetite, Raza had the odd reputation of being Umarkhadi's menace. On January 18, the trustee of Bilal Masjid (Mosque) was arrested under sections 376 (Rape), 377 (Unnatural sex), 354 (Outraging the modesty of a woman), section 67B of the Information & Technology Act and Section 3 of the newly-introduced stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (PCSOA).
In early December, Raza had lured a 13-year-old girl, who lived in the neighbourhood into the masjid's first floor, telling her he would recite a poem he had composed. He stripped her and forced her to perform oral sex, while he filmed the act on his cellphone.The crowd of mostly men that gathers to meet us on a Wednesday evening is brimming with stories of Raza's fondness for lodging false complaints against detractors. "Woh likhai mein bada ustaad tha," says Mubin Ahmed, a local. "If somebody bothered him, he made their life hell. Two maulanas here were grilled by the police after he wrote to them about the two being Lashkar-e-Toiba operatives."
Investigating Officer at Shivaji Nagar police station, Hemant Desai says Raza was loathed by his neighbours. "He had high nuisance value, and wielded sufficient clout to keep adversaries at bay. Lodging false complaints was his survival mechanism," says Desai, hinting at his friendship with local corporators over the years.
During his arrest, the police confiscated Rs 85,000 from Raza and found a handwritten list of people who had paid him for various tasks. "He made a living by writing applications for ration cards, PAN cards, and getting the locals water connections," shares Desai.
A native of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, the class eight dropout moved to Govandi in 1979 after his wife's demise, accompanied by his son and daughter. Back then, Umarkhadi was a wasteland with no more than a dozen hutments. Raza started off as a fruit seller, graduating to 'social work'. By the end of the 1980s, he took the lead in constructing the Bilal Masjid, and stepped in as its trustee.
In the two weeks that Desai interrogated Raza, the officer found him indulgent; a reflection of the narcissism most paedophiles exhibit. "He said he shot the video to save it for himself. He squarely blamed the victim for what he did to her; she had willingly joined him, he said. I'm not sure if he regrets what he did, but he instantly confessed: Mere se galat kaam ho gaya. He knew he had nowhere to hide."
On the December morning he waylaid the victim and her friend outside the masjid, Raza was far from hesitant. Despite the girls insisting they were late for an exam at their municipal school, Raza lured them to the masjid's first floor where he lived, so that he could recite a nazm (poem) he had penned. Since the girls took Arabic lessons from the 'chacha', they agreed. Just as he was about to bolt the door, the victim's friend grew suspicious and dashed out. Raza eased the victim with small talk before he undressed her while she meekly resisted. In the clip, say those who watched it, he forced her to perform oral sex on him.
Had it not been for a twist of fate, his perversion may have remained under wraps. When he was recording the sodomy on his cellphone, Raza was unknowingly creating evidence against himself. Just days after he violated the girl, Raza's phone got stolen, and his karma boomeranged in filmi style.
To rein in the child sexual abuser, it had to be a curious kid who would spot a discarded SIM card at a street corner. Amused by his little nephew's find, his uncle Wasim Shah slipped it into his own phone and was blown away by what he saw. He forwarded it to his friend Mohammad Mukhtar. Both were subsequently arrested under the IT Act, 2000, for circulating the MMS.
In the next two days, the whole of Govandi had devoured the video. "Everybody was glued to their phones, children were ogling at it. The sight was unbearable," says local activist Mohammad Mangru Shah, who rushed to break the news to the victim's father, a handcart-puller. "It was only when he confronted his daughter with the clip, that she broke down in admittance," says Shah.
An FIR was lodged against Raza on January 10, and the following morning, the police barged into a room at a nearby chawl that Raza and a distant sister shared. By then, a mob had gathered to lynch Raza. "Cops had to call in extra personnel and set up barricades to ensure he was safely taken to the police station," recalls Mubin, who stays in the locality.
The traumatised victim, who has refused to go to school since the episode, was cajoled out of silence by Minu Gandhi, counsellor at childcare NGO Apnalaya. This was a week after the cops had paused at booking Raza for unnatural sex. "She was very scared. Raza had made her swear secrecy on the Quran, and threatened to kill her parents," says Gandhi, who was told by the girl that Raza had also raped her. But during interrogation, he claimed he was battling impotency for the last six years. Gandhi adds, "She wasn't alone. Raza had previously sexually abused two of her friends."
Using the crutch of rampant illiteracy, Raza had repeatedly managed to shroud his filthy past.
Afroze Ahmed lives a hop away from Bilal Masjid, a deceptively small structure that stands in a stick-thin lane. He recounts a four-year-old incident that points to him being a habitual offender. "A painter called Irfan was sprucing up the masjid's outer wall. Through a window, he saw Raza sodomising a young boy. Irfan raised an alarm, but Raza negotiated a Rs 2,000 'deal' with him." Irfan, says Ahmed, was disgusted but hesitant to take on Raza.
Before the police searched his room in the mosque, mischievous boys stumbled on libido-enhancing sprays and tablets.
Displaying a classic trait of a serial sexual offender, Raza was always working at isolating himself from the close-knit community. Over time, he had assumed sole authority over the masjid's affairs, and locals allege he was storing the drums with dirty water to discourage the devout from frequenting the mosque. Afroze says, "We couldn't perform wazu (ablution) with that water. Like me, several men stopped frequenting the masjid." To cleanse the area of 'sin', Ahmed says the locals washed it for hours with detergent.
Interestingly, Raza's fascination with his mobile phone camera wasn't limited to shooting smut. Despite being asocial, he'd roam the alleys filming mundane acts, whether road repair or house construction.
After Raza's arrest, more dirt was dug up. "Raza had repeatedly sexually abused his disabled daughter. Neighbours say she had confided in them, but nobody believed her," says Mangru Shah. The girl and her brother, died some years ago. Shah says, like before, this time too, most elders sought to play down the rape. "'Iss masley par pardah daal do,' they said. But we were tired of turning a blind eye. No religion permits savagery. It had to stop."
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