The Ajmer scandal came to light in 1992, exposing a series of systemic blackmail and gang-rape of hundreds of teenage school and college girls.
New Delhi: A girl was secretly filmed by fellow students in the women’s washroom of a prominent medical institute in Karnataka’s Udupi. Following the incident, three girl students who had allegedly placed secret cameras in women’s washroom, were suspended by the college authorities.
According to reports, three girls, identified as— Alimatul Shaifa, Shabanaz and Aliya—had allegedly placed mobile phone cameras in the women’s washrooms in a bid film other girls using toilets or taking a shower, India Today reported.
The incident triggered protests by students at the institute as they demanded strict action against the accused for violating their privacy. The three accused students were later suspended by management for bringing mobile phones to college and used the devices to film another student in the washroom.
Meanwhile, as the news vent viral on social media networks, some users have drawn parallels with the infamous 1992 Ajmer sex scandal. A notorious incident in the early 1990s where hundreds of school and college girls were allegedly gangraped by men belonging to the minority community after purportedly blackmailing them with nude photos.
In a series of tweets, Rashmi Samant, a human rights worker, drew parallels between the Udipi case and the Ajmer scandal. She claimed that “unsuspecting” girls were blackmailed with naked photographs were disturbed and pushed towards ending their lives.
Samant cooked up a conspiracy theory, alleging that such voyeuristic photos and videos shared in WhatsApp Groups in order to blackmail the unwary girls, adding that the issue does not receive enough condemnation and isn’t viewed “with the severity it deserved”.
Other users also chimed in on the alleged conspiracy, terming the Udupi case as ‘Ajmer 1992 Part 2’ and ‘Udupi Files’.
Some users on the other hand simply called it a case of bad behaviour and bullying by some students who were then appropriately suspended by the college management for their transgressions.
1992 Ajmer sex scandal
The Ajmer scandal came to light in 1992, exposing a series of systemic blackmail and gang-rape of hundreds of teenage school and college girls. The sickening sex scandal which shook society to the core in the early 1990s, reportedly took place over a couple of years.
The modus operandi of the perpetrators revealed how they filmed and clicked unsuspicious victims in their most private moments and later shared these obscene films and pictures to local gangsters, most of them from the minority community. The criminals then used these photos and videos as leverage to blackmail and rape the victims.
As per media reports at the time, a man with alleged links to the Ajmer Sharif Dargah had befriended a college girl and secretly filmed her private moments. This vile act started a vicious cycle of blackmail and rape which led to the exploitation of hundreds of teen girls.
The scandal came to light after it was first reportd by a Jaipur-based Hindi newspaper ‘Dainik Navjyoti’. The report revealed that Farooq and Nafis Chishty, who belong to the influential Khadim family, responsible for overlooking the Ajmer Sharif Dargah, allegedly ran a network of young men who used to trap and blackmail young women and later gang-raped them at a private farmhouse.
As per investigations, the vicious cycle of sexual violence started when Farooq Chishty befriended a schoolgirl from Ajmer’s Sophia Senior Secondary School in Ajmer. Chisty took obscene pictures of the girl and used these to blackmail her into introducing her to other girls at her school.
The girls were often lured to the farmhouse where they were sexually violated by the Chistys and their gang. The violators also shot obscene videos and photos of at least 250 young girls, aged between 11 and 20.