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Settling down for the night.
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Shopkeepers pull down their shutters one by one.
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Motorbikes weave past food stalls and tea shops carrying people on their way home.
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Inside her house, Lakshmi can hear the TV.
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Her dad and brother are watching the evening news.
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In the kitchen, her mother rinses rice for dinner.
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A steel vessel strikes the edge of the sink before the tab is turned off.
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For several minutes, Lakshmi remains where she is, her mind racing.
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She runs through different scenarios of what might happen next.
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A few weeks ago, she'd met a college friend.
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He was ahead of her by a couple years, and the two had spoken often.
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He knew many of her friends, had listened to her complain about exams, they chatted over snacks near campus.
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One afternoon, when he asked if they could meet at a nearby bus stop because he needed to discuss something privately, she didn't think anything of it.
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She went to see him.
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After that afternoon, every day began splitting in two for Lakshmi.
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There was the version her family could see.
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She went to college, she sat through lectures, she laughed with friends, helped her mom around the house.
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Then there was the phone she carried with her, every ping tightening the knot in her stomach.
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There were messages she couldn't ignore, calls she dreaded answering, demands being made by multiple men.
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At first she tried to deal with it herself.
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She handed over the money just as the men had ordered her to, several times.
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But these men kept coming back.
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They kept contacting her, wanting more.
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Standing outside her home, what mattered to Lakshmi right then was that recordings existed.
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Recordings she had begged the men to delete.
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Now they were threatening to send them across WhatsApp if she didn't come up with more money.
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If those recordings spread, Lakshmi already knew what would happen.
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By the next morning, relatives would know.
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By the end of the week, neighbors would be lowering their voices when she walked past.
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Mothers would warn daughters to stay away.
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People would ask why Lakshmi met him, why she got into that car, questions directed at her, not at the men now filling her phone with threats.
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Her parents would be left trying to answer their own questions.
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What kind of freedom had they given their daughter?
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Why had they allowed her to spend time with young men?
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Lakshmi believed she was about to tell her family about a private nightmare.
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She didn't know that dozens of other women had already crossed paths with the same group of men.
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Investigators would later describe an organized extortion network accused of luring women through friendship and romance, sexually assaulting them, secretly recording the attacks, and using those recordings to demand money and keep the women silent.
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The allegations would shake Bolachi, dominate headlines across India, and eventually raise questions that reached far beyond the small town.
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Eventually, Lakshmi walks into her home.
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Her brother and father look up.
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Neither of them can see how much their lives are about to change.
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Lakshmi takes a deep breath.
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Then she begins to speak.
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In the weeks before, there had been very little to distinguish him from the dozens of other young men Lakshmi knew from college.
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They saw one another often enough on campus and had many common friends on social media.
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Conversation was easy.
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One afternoon, he told her he needed to talk.
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He sounded upset.
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According to accounts later reported by investigators in the media, he said he was dealing with personal problems and wanted someone to confide in.
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Would she meet him at a local bus stop for just a few minutes?
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Lakshmi agreed.
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She was wrapping up her classes and was getting ready to go home.
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She grabbed her bag, said a quick goodbye to her friends, and headed to the bus stop.
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When Lakshmi arrived at the bus stop, her friend was waiting by a local bakery leaning against a car.
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Inside the car was another man she had met a few times at college.
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When Lakshmi walked up to her friend, he suggested a quick drive while they chatted, just to get some respite from the afternoon sun.
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Lakshmi slid into the backseat without much hesitation.
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She knew both men.
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They'd all been part of the same extended circle for months.
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Outside, buses were pulling in and out of the stop, vendors were serving tea, and people drifted past the nearby marketplace without paying any attention to the car.
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Just a regular afternoon in her small town.
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For a while, the journey must have looked so normal.
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They crawled through the same roads Lakshmi had used many times.
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Buses rumbled past in the opposite direction.
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Men chatted outside tea shops sipping their hot drink.
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Her friend kept talking.
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Lakshmi watched the town move past outside.
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Then gradually the landmarks she recognized began disappearing.
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The rows of shops thinned out.
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Buildings sat further apart.
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The traffic grew lighter.
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Lakshmi asked where they were going, but neither man gave her a straight answer.
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Then the car began slowing down.
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Lakshmi saw two other men appear on the now deserted street.
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They opened the back door and got in on either side of her.
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According to the complaint later filed by Lakshmi's family, she was trapped, overpowered, and sexually assaulted as the car continued down the road.
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One of the men recorded what was happening on his phone.
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Another tore the gold necklace from around her neck while helping restrain her.
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Before she was finally let go, the men held the phone in front of her and played back the videos.
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The videos would be made public, they said, if Lakshmi went to the police.
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She was then driven back into town before being pushed out of the car.
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Lakshmi stood on the street shaking.
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She had to get home.
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But she still had to walk through her front door.
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Her mother was probably gathering items for dinner.
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Her father would ask how Lakshmi's day had been as he did every day.
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And somehow she had to answer as though nothing had happened.
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Over the days that followed, Lakshmi's phone began filling with calls and messages.
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At first the demands were straightforward.
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Pay or the videos would be shared.
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She paid.
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Then they asked for more.
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She paid again.
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Each payment created a brief feeling of relief that the ordeal might be over.
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But each time, another demand followed.
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One time, the men ordered Lakshmi to come back to the bus stop for another drive.
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By then, Lakshmi understood that this wasn't something that could be negotiated away.
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The people contacting her had expected their demands to be met because they believed fear of public shame would keep her silent.
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And for a while, they were right.
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When Lakshmi finally told her family what had happened, she wasn't asking them to fight an underground criminal network.
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She just wanted the calls and the messages to stop.
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The harassment that threats to end, the videos to be deleted.
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Her brother listened, his anger and shock growing while she explained what had happened over the previous weeks.
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The meeting at the bus stop, the drive, the men, the videos, the threats that followed.
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Lakshmi's family didn't go to the police first.
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Her brother gathered several friends instead.
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They got on their motorbikes and began looking for the men Lakshmi had named.
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According to later reporting, they eventually found them and forced a confrontation.
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It happened very quickly.
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Angry voices, shouting, blows exchanged.
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By the time it was over, the men who had spent weeks threatening Lakshmi were sitting on the floor while her brother demanded they unlock their phones.
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Lakshmi's brother took out his own phone and turned the camera onto the men now cowering on the floor.
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He started recording.
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This recording still exists.
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Watching it today is infuriating.
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Three young men sit on the floor with their knees pulled tightly against their chests.
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Their shirts are open and disheveled.
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There are cuts on their faces.
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One of them points across the room before anyone has even finished asking a question.
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It was him.
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Another immediately interrupts.
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No, he's the one who brought the girls.
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A third insists he never touched anyone.
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He only drove the car.
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The men are clearly panicking.
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They promise they'll delete everything, insist there are no copies.
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They beg Lakshmi's brother not to hand them over to the police or to hurt them.
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Lakshmi's brother had not gone looking for evidence.
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He was outraged.
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He wanted the men to face consequences for hurting his sister.
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Instead, he found far more than expected.
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The phones contained multiple videos of other young women going back years.
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One woman appears beside a roadside field.
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Another is trapped in the backseat of a car.
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In several recordings, the women seem to know at least one of the men.
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Many appear confused before they appear frightened.
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In a few weeks, by the time investigators had worked through enough of the material to understand what they were looking at, a picture that it seemed impossible to imagine began emerging piece by piece.
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Women being filmed without their consent, pleading for the recording to stop.
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Some women try to fight back.
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The women didn't appear to know one another, yet the men seemed to be using the same playbook with them.
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A young woman would be approached through common friends or through social media.
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A friendship or romantic relationship would develop between one of the men and the woman.
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Conversations would happen for months.
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The woman would eventually receive a phone call just as Lakshmi had.
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Then came the meeting, the assault, the recordings, the threats, the demands for money, sometimes jewelry, sometimes repeated sexual exploitation.
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News reports at the time described hundreds of photographs and videos.
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Police eventually identified dozens of women who appeared to have been targeted.
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Doctors, college students, teachers, hairdressers.
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None of these women had contacted the police.
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Some had been victims of blackmail for years.
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Until the police called their homes or knocked on their doors, each woman had believed she was living in her own private hell.
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Each believed she was completely alone.
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But the phones suggested the opposite.
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Each recording connected to another woman.
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And the women led investigators toward the same names, the same vehicles, and the same methods.
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The scale of what had been happening in Polacchi was only beginning to come into focus.
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Let's go back for a moment.
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Lakshmi's brother and his friends had handed the phones over to the police.
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The small police station in Polacchi wasn't prepared for what sat on that desk in front of them.
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At first, the case didn't look like the beginning of a national scandal.
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Investigators initially brushed aside the case as a confrontation between two groups of local young men.
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Injuries, counterallegations, several suspects whose families were already known in local political circles.
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One of the officers finally unlocked the first phone.
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He opened the gallery.
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There was one video.
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Then another.
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Then another.
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His thumb kept moving.
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Each recording showed a different young woman.
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Some were crying.
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Others struggled to push the camera away while voices nearby laughed.
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One woman kicked wildly at the men surrounding her.
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Another pleaded with them to stop recording.
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The timestamps stretched backwards through months, then years.
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At first none of it made any sense.
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Then certain details began repeating.
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The same young men appearing in the background.
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The same car, the same voices.
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So the officer opened another file, then another.
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The similarities became harder to ignore.
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Outside the police station, very little changed over these weeks.
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Buses still dropped off students at schools and colleges.
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Tea stalls filled up in the afternoon.
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Parents waited for daughters to return home from class.
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Most people in Polaci had no idea that inside a police evidence room, investigators were beginning to realize that they weren't dealing with a handful of assaults.
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The phones pointed to an organized operation that appeared to have targeted women over several years.
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Every device they examined widened the investigation.
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Every new video suggested there were women who still hadn't been identified.
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And that discovery also created a problem.
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Finding the women.
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Many of the faces on those phones belonged to people police couldn't identify immediately.
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Even when investigators eventually worked out who they were, there was another obstacle.
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Coming forward demanded far more than finding the courage to report the assault.
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It meant walking into a small town police station where anonymity was almost impossible.
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There was no way to quietly hand over a phone or leave a statement without attaching your name to it.
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The women had to identify themselves, describe the assault step by step, and trust that the people listening could protect them before the men who threatened them found out.
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And even if the investigation remained confidential, another fear waited outside the station.
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Would their parents stand by them?
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Would relatives ask why they'd agreed to meet the men in the first place?
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Would neighbors whisper about the videos long after everyone had forgotten the names of the men accused of recording them?
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The recordings had been created to keep victims silent.
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Sitting in that evidence room, investigators were beginning to understand how effective those recordings had been.
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Some of the women in the videos had lived with the threats for months, others for years.
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And until the police came looking for them, many had never told a single soul what had happened.
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As some investigators worked through the seized devices, others began the painstaking process of identifying the faces in the videos.
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Then came the phone calls.
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For many families, the conversation arrived without warning.
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A police officer asking whether their daughter could come to the station.
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No explanation, only that it was important.
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Imagine receiving that call.
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Perhaps your daughter's been leaving for college every morning as she always does.
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Or she's been teaching at a nearby school.
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Or spending long days working at a salon before coming home in time for dinner.
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Then an officer tells you, there are videos they need your daughter to see.
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For some families, that conversation was the first indication that anything had even happened.
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For others, the signs had been there all along.
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A daughter who stopped wearing the gold necklace her parents had given her because it had already been handed over.
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A young woman who silently deleted Facebook and Instagram, and then shrugged when friends asked why they could no longer find her online.
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A student who no longer stayed after class, no longer met friends, no longer wanted to leave the house unless she had to.
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The men accused in the case understood the world these women lived in.
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In Polacci, a daughter's actions could become a conversation about her parents, her brothers, her sisters.
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For many women, that future felt just as real as the threats pinging on their phones.
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They already knew how the conversation would unfold.
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A father asking why she'd agreed to meet this boy, an uncle wanting to know why she'd been speaking to a young man in the first place.
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The scrutiny would settle almost entirely on her.
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Several women later told investigators they had paid money because they believed they had no choice.
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Others returned when the men demanded to meet again.
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Each decision made sense in the narrow world the blackmailers had created.
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Worth borrowing money.
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If another meeting meant protecting your parents from humiliation, perhaps you endured one more afternoon.
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By the time investigators began contacting the women identified from the phones, they were asking for far more than a statement.
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They were asking the women to revisit the worst day of their lives, to trust that the people listening would see them as victims rather than suspects in their own suffering.
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Some found the strength to do that.
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Many, understandably, never did.
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The rumors arrived before the facts.
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Nobody seemed to know exactly what had happened, only that several young men had been arrested.
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Only that videos existed.
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Inside the police station, investigators were still trying to put names to faces.
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Outside, the town was trying to do the same thing.
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Some people wanted to know which girls appeared in the videos.
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Others wanted to know who the men were.
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For the families of the women, every rumor brought its own kind of dread.
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People talked, they speculated, they guessed.
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And in a town where families often know one another through schools, workplaces, marriages, and generations of shared history, rumors travel fast.
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Then the violence spread beyond the original complaint.
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According to reporting at the time, Lakshmi's brother was attacked by associates of the accused men.
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The assault was serious enough that photographs of his injuries began circulating publicly.
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People who had only been half paying attention suddenly started paying closer attention.
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Because now there were visible signs that something much larger was unfolding.
00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:20.079
Not just allegations or rumors, but violence, attempts at intimidation, questions that refused to go away.
00:24:20.319 --> 00:24:23.200
Why had Lakshmi's family been attacked?
00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:26.799
What exactly had been found on these phones?
00:24:27.200 --> 00:24:29.599
How many women were involved?
00:24:30.319 --> 00:24:33.680
Local media began covering the case aggressively.
00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:37.759
Television crews arrived from all over the country.
00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:45.119
Political leaders began commenting publicly, and women's organizations demanded answers.
00:24:46.079 --> 00:24:51.279
As more details emerged, outrage began replacing speculation.
00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:56.160
A single allegation is easy for people to dismiss.
00:24:56.880 --> 00:24:59.200
Dozens are much harder.
00:25:00.079 --> 00:25:06.799
And while the public conversation grew louder, investigators kept running into the same problem.
00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:12.640
Many of the women appearing in the recordings still didn't want to come forward.
00:25:13.440 --> 00:25:16.079
Some refused to make formal statements.
00:25:16.559 --> 00:25:18.880
Others never responded at all.
00:25:19.440 --> 00:25:26.799
The fear that had protected the men for years had not disappeared simply because reporters arrived.
00:25:28.319 --> 00:25:32.880
If anything, the attention sometimes made that fear worse.
00:25:33.519 --> 00:25:36.720
Because every headline brought new scrutiny.
00:25:37.119 --> 00:25:41.680
Every television debate reminded families of what was at stake.
00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:48.000
Public outrage, unfortunately, does not erase public judgment.
00:25:49.680 --> 00:26:00.319
Investigators have long believed the number of women identified in the seized phones represented only a fraction of those who had actually been targeted.
00:26:00.960 --> 00:26:06.640
And as the investigation widened, another question refused to go away.
00:26:07.440 --> 00:26:12.720
How had this continued for years without anyone stopping it?
00:26:15.839 --> 00:26:20.480
As the investigation grew, attention slowly shifted.
00:26:20.799 --> 00:26:26.319
People began asking what the police had done after Lakshmi first walked into the station.
00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:29.759
And what they hadn't done.
00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:35.599
One of the earliest decisions would become a source of lasting criticism.
00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:48.480
According to reporting at the time and later court records, the initial First Information Report, or FIR, focused primarily on the robbery of Lakshmi's gold necklace.
00:26:49.200 --> 00:27:01.599
The allegations of sexual assault were there, but many lawyers, activists, and opposition politicians argued they'd not been handled with the urgency the case demanded.
00:27:02.319 --> 00:27:04.559
Then came another blow.
00:27:05.039 --> 00:27:08.720
Lakshmi's identity began circulating publicly.
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:14.799
Under Indian law, survivors of sexual assault are entitled to anonymity.
00:27:15.359 --> 00:27:20.079
Yet her name and personal details quickly became known.
00:27:20.400 --> 00:27:23.440
Women's rights groups demanded answers.
00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:31.200
Lakshmi's family suddenly found themselves dealing with the very thing they had feared from the beginning.
00:27:31.599 --> 00:27:32.559
Exposure.
00:27:33.599 --> 00:27:43.359
Instead of feeling protected after coming forward, they found themselves at the center of a story the entire country was beginning to watch.
00:27:45.839 --> 00:27:52.160
At the police station, journalists now waited from early morning until well after sunset.
00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:55.359
Satellite vans lined the streets.
00:27:56.160 --> 00:27:59.359
Every new development was breaking news.
00:27:59.920 --> 00:28:05.519
Investigators continued comparing statements and trying to identify more women.
00:28:06.559 --> 00:28:12.640
The pace of the investigation had also changed, but so had the pressure surrounding it.
00:28:13.359 --> 00:28:16.480
Politicians argued about it at rallies.
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:20.400
Soon another allegation entered the story.
00:28:20.880 --> 00:28:26.319
Some of the accused were reported to have connections to local political figures.
00:28:27.039 --> 00:28:32.079
Opposition parties accused the state government of trying to shield influential people.
00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:35.359
The government rejected these claims.
00:28:35.680 --> 00:28:46.720
Very quickly, the case stopped being only about the crimes themselves, and rather became a test for whether the investigative process could be trusted.
00:28:47.920 --> 00:29:01.039
The concern grew loud enough that within weeks the Tamil Nadu government transferred the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation, India's premier federal investigative agency.
00:29:02.960 --> 00:29:08.160
For the survivors' families, this transfer actually brought some hope.
00:29:08.640 --> 00:29:11.440
But it also reflected a growing reality.
00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:20.240
The questions surrounding Polacchi were no longer confined to a single town or a single group of young men.
00:29:23.200 --> 00:29:28.400
By the spring of 2019, Polacchi no longer felt quite the same.
00:29:28.960 --> 00:29:35.599
Parents who had once thought little of a classmate offering a ride home began asking more questions.
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:37.039
Who is he?
00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:38.799
How do you know him?
00:29:39.279 --> 00:29:41.759
Some young women deleted Facebook.
00:29:42.079 --> 00:29:44.880
Others removed photographs from Instagram.
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:50.000
Women's organizations organized demonstrations across Tamil Nadu.
00:29:50.480 --> 00:29:55.759
Students marched on college campuses carrying placards, demanding accountability.
00:29:57.279 --> 00:30:07.440
Activists repeatedly urged the public to stop searching for the videos, stop forwarding rumors, stop trying to identify the women.
00:30:08.079 --> 00:30:14.799
The people who deserved scrutiny, they argued, were the men accused of recording the assaults.
00:30:15.759 --> 00:30:18.079
Yet that proved difficult.
00:30:19.039 --> 00:30:27.599
Even as outrage spread, familiar queries continued appearing beneath news reports and television debates.
00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:30.240
Why did she trust him?
00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:32.160
Why meet him alone?
00:30:32.480 --> 00:30:37.519
Those questions had haunted survivors long before the investigation began.
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:42.400
Now they were actually being repeated across the country.
00:31:01.759 --> 00:31:09.920
Yet the case kept returning, pulling them back into events they had spent years trying to move away from.
00:31:27.519 --> 00:31:31.920
Messages, videos, call records, contacts.
00:31:32.720 --> 00:31:43.759
In 2024, a special court convicted the nine accused men, finding that they had kidnapped, sexually assaulted, filmed, and blackmailed survivors.
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:47.839
The court sentenced the convicted men to life imprisonment.
00:31:49.119 --> 00:31:57.680
For Lakshmi's family and for many of the women who had chosen to testify, the verdict brought a measure of recognition.
00:31:59.359 --> 00:32:08.720
But the conviction, of course, didn't return the years lost to living in fear or answer every question the case left behind.
00:32:09.599 --> 00:32:13.759
Many women who appeared in the recordings were never identified.
00:32:14.640 --> 00:32:17.680
And, of course, some never came forward.
00:32:18.960 --> 00:32:25.519
This reminds us that there are always stories that just don't reach a witness stand.
00:32:27.039 --> 00:32:36.480
On the night Lakshmi stood outside her front door, she believed she was about to tell her family about the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:44.720
She couldn't have known she would also uncover years of violence that had remained hidden behind silence and fear.
00:32:45.519 --> 00:32:50.960
The recordings found on those phones exposed how shame could be turned into a weapon.
00:32:51.680 --> 00:32:57.200
The women in those videos lived with the belief that speaking would destroy their lives.
00:32:57.599 --> 00:33:01.920
And this was exactly what the men accused in the case relied upon.
00:33:03.599 --> 00:33:12.240
The Poleggi case is often remembered for the number of videos investigators recovered, or the number of women they eventually identified.
00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:18.640
But those numbers can make it easy to forget what this investigation really began with.
00:33:19.440 --> 00:33:26.559
One young woman walking into her home and deciding she couldn't do this alone anymore.
00:33:27.119 --> 00:33:30.079
That decision changed everything.
00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:33.920
It led investigators to a collection of phones.
00:33:34.160 --> 00:33:37.039
Those phones led to dozens of women.
00:33:37.359 --> 00:33:42.720
Those women revealed an operation that had been unfolding for years.
00:33:43.759 --> 00:33:48.480
Even today, the Polacci case leaves behind uncomfortable questions.
00:33:49.119 --> 00:33:53.920
About the way public shame can become as frightening as violence itself.
00:33:54.640 --> 00:34:04.079
About how people remain silent because they believe the consequences of speaking will fall more heavily on them than on the people who harmed them.
00:34:05.680 --> 00:34:13.599
For Lakshmi, the story changed the moment she stepped across the threshold of her home and told her family the truth.
00:34:14.159 --> 00:34:19.280
For everyone else, it began only after she did this.
00:34:23.679 --> 00:34:25.840
This is missing context.
00:34:26.079 --> 00:34:28.880
New episodes are released every Wednesday.
00:34:29.119 --> 00:34:36.880
If you found the story meaningful, follow the podcast wherever you listen and consider sharing this episode with someone else.
00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:24.239
Settling down for the night.
00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:28.079
Shopkeepers pull down their shutters one by one.
00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:34.159
Motorbikes weave past food stalls and tea shops carrying people on their way home.
00:00:35.600 --> 00:00:38.640
Inside her house, Lakshmi can hear the TV.
00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:41.840
Her dad and brother are watching the evening news.
00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:45.520
In the kitchen, her mother rinses rice for dinner.
00:00:45.759 --> 00:00:50.479
A steel vessel strikes the edge of the sink before the tab is turned off.
00:00:51.200 --> 00:00:56.159
For several minutes, Lakshmi remains where she is, her mind racing.
00:00:56.560 --> 00:01:01.039
She runs through different scenarios of what might happen next.
00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:05.359
A few weeks ago, she'd met a college friend.
00:01:05.599 --> 00:01:10.079
He was ahead of her by a couple years, and the two had spoken often.
00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:17.840
He knew many of her friends, had listened to her complain about exams, they chatted over snacks near campus.
00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:28.319
One afternoon, when he asked if they could meet at a nearby bus stop because he needed to discuss something privately, she didn't think anything of it.
00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:30.000
She went to see him.
00:01:31.200 --> 00:01:36.560
After that afternoon, every day began splitting in two for Lakshmi.
00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:39.760
There was the version her family could see.
00:01:40.239 --> 00:01:47.200
She went to college, she sat through lectures, she laughed with friends, helped her mom around the house.
00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:54.959
Then there was the phone she carried with her, every ping tightening the knot in her stomach.
00:01:55.359 --> 00:02:04.480
There were messages she couldn't ignore, calls she dreaded answering, demands being made by multiple men.
00:02:06.319 --> 00:02:09.520
At first she tried to deal with it herself.
00:02:09.840 --> 00:02:15.280
She handed over the money just as the men had ordered her to, several times.
00:02:15.919 --> 00:02:18.319
But these men kept coming back.
00:02:18.560 --> 00:02:21.120
They kept contacting her, wanting more.
00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:29.120
Standing outside her home, what mattered to Lakshmi right then was that recordings existed.
00:02:29.599 --> 00:02:32.879
Recordings she had begged the men to delete.
00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:39.680
Now they were threatening to send them across WhatsApp if she didn't come up with more money.
00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:47.360
If those recordings spread, Lakshmi already knew what would happen.
00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:50.719
By the next morning, relatives would know.
00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:56.240
By the end of the week, neighbors would be lowering their voices when she walked past.
00:02:56.719 --> 00:02:59.759
Mothers would warn daughters to stay away.
00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:11.360
People would ask why Lakshmi met him, why she got into that car, questions directed at her, not at the men now filling her phone with threats.
00:03:12.719 --> 00:03:16.719
Her parents would be left trying to answer their own questions.
00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:20.560
What kind of freedom had they given their daughter?
00:03:20.960 --> 00:03:24.800
Why had they allowed her to spend time with young men?
00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:32.400
Lakshmi believed she was about to tell her family about a private nightmare.
00:03:34.159 --> 00:03:41.840
She didn't know that dozens of other women had already crossed paths with the same group of men.
00:03:43.919 --> 00:04:02.000
Investigators would later describe an organized extortion network accused of luring women through friendship and romance, sexually assaulting them, secretly recording the attacks, and using those recordings to demand money and keep the women silent.
00:04:03.759 --> 00:04:15.520
The allegations would shake Bolachi, dominate headlines across India, and eventually raise questions that reached far beyond the small town.
00:04:17.920 --> 00:04:21.360
Eventually, Lakshmi walks into her home.
00:04:21.839 --> 00:04:23.920
Her brother and father look up.
00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:29.279
Neither of them can see how much their lives are about to change.
00:04:30.399 --> 00:04:33.040
Lakshmi takes a deep breath.
00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:36.480
Then she begins to speak.
00:04:54.399 --> 00:05:02.160
In the weeks before, there had been very little to distinguish him from the dozens of other young men Lakshmi knew from college.
00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:08.319
They saw one another often enough on campus and had many common friends on social media.
00:05:08.639 --> 00:05:10.800
Conversation was easy.
00:05:11.759 --> 00:05:14.720
One afternoon, he told her he needed to talk.
00:05:14.959 --> 00:05:16.560
He sounded upset.
00:05:17.279 --> 00:05:26.399
According to accounts later reported by investigators in the media, he said he was dealing with personal problems and wanted someone to confide in.
00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:30.560
Would she meet him at a local bus stop for just a few minutes?
00:05:31.040 --> 00:05:32.639
Lakshmi agreed.
00:05:32.879 --> 00:05:36.639
She was wrapping up her classes and was getting ready to go home.
00:05:36.879 --> 00:05:41.920
She grabbed her bag, said a quick goodbye to her friends, and headed to the bus stop.
00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:50.000
When Lakshmi arrived at the bus stop, her friend was waiting by a local bakery leaning against a car.
00:05:50.639 --> 00:05:55.120
Inside the car was another man she had met a few times at college.
00:05:55.839 --> 00:06:04.240
When Lakshmi walked up to her friend, he suggested a quick drive while they chatted, just to get some respite from the afternoon sun.
00:06:05.360 --> 00:06:09.519
Lakshmi slid into the backseat without much hesitation.
00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:11.199
She knew both men.
00:06:11.360 --> 00:06:14.959
They'd all been part of the same extended circle for months.
00:06:15.680 --> 00:06:27.279
Outside, buses were pulling in and out of the stop, vendors were serving tea, and people drifted past the nearby marketplace without paying any attention to the car.
00:06:27.759 --> 00:06:31.600
Just a regular afternoon in her small town.
00:06:32.720 --> 00:06:36.480
For a while, the journey must have looked so normal.
00:06:37.120 --> 00:06:41.759
They crawled through the same roads Lakshmi had used many times.
00:06:42.079 --> 00:06:45.279
Buses rumbled past in the opposite direction.
00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:49.439
Men chatted outside tea shops sipping their hot drink.
00:06:49.920 --> 00:06:52.079
Her friend kept talking.
00:06:52.800 --> 00:06:56.240
Lakshmi watched the town move past outside.
00:06:58.079 --> 00:07:03.120
Then gradually the landmarks she recognized began disappearing.
00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:05.839
The rows of shops thinned out.
00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:08.560
Buildings sat further apart.
00:07:09.279 --> 00:07:11.600
The traffic grew lighter.
00:07:12.560 --> 00:07:19.279
Lakshmi asked where they were going, but neither man gave her a straight answer.
00:07:22.160 --> 00:07:24.879
Then the car began slowing down.
00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:30.560
Lakshmi saw two other men appear on the now deserted street.
00:07:30.800 --> 00:07:34.639
They opened the back door and got in on either side of her.
00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:47.279
According to the complaint later filed by Lakshmi's family, she was trapped, overpowered, and sexually assaulted as the car continued down the road.
00:07:48.079 --> 00:07:51.839
One of the men recorded what was happening on his phone.
00:07:52.079 --> 00:07:57.279
Another tore the gold necklace from around her neck while helping restrain her.
00:07:58.480 --> 00:08:05.759
Before she was finally let go, the men held the phone in front of her and played back the videos.
00:08:06.560 --> 00:08:12.480
The videos would be made public, they said, if Lakshmi went to the police.
00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:19.680
She was then driven back into town before being pushed out of the car.
00:08:21.759 --> 00:08:24.639
Lakshmi stood on the street shaking.
00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:27.360
She had to get home.
00:08:28.319 --> 00:08:31.439
But she still had to walk through her front door.
00:08:32.159 --> 00:08:35.840
Her mother was probably gathering items for dinner.
00:08:36.159 --> 00:08:40.720
Her father would ask how Lakshmi's day had been as he did every day.
00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:46.240
And somehow she had to answer as though nothing had happened.
00:08:47.759 --> 00:08:53.519
Over the days that followed, Lakshmi's phone began filling with calls and messages.
00:08:54.240 --> 00:08:57.039
At first the demands were straightforward.
00:08:57.519 --> 00:09:01.519
Pay or the videos would be shared.
00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:02.960
She paid.
00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:05.519
Then they asked for more.
00:09:06.080 --> 00:09:07.600
She paid again.
00:09:08.480 --> 00:09:14.159
Each payment created a brief feeling of relief that the ordeal might be over.
00:09:15.679 --> 00:09:18.960
But each time, another demand followed.
00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:24.720
One time, the men ordered Lakshmi to come back to the bus stop for another drive.
00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:31.840
By then, Lakshmi understood that this wasn't something that could be negotiated away.
00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:39.919
The people contacting her had expected their demands to be met because they believed fear of public shame would keep her silent.
00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:43.759
And for a while, they were right.
00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:55.120
When Lakshmi finally told her family what had happened, she wasn't asking them to fight an underground criminal network.
00:09:55.519 --> 00:09:58.799
She just wanted the calls and the messages to stop.
00:09:59.279 --> 00:10:04.879
The harassment that threats to end, the videos to be deleted.
00:10:05.679 --> 00:10:12.320
Her brother listened, his anger and shock growing while she explained what had happened over the previous weeks.
00:10:12.720 --> 00:10:20.240
The meeting at the bus stop, the drive, the men, the videos, the threats that followed.
00:10:21.759 --> 00:10:24.960
Lakshmi's family didn't go to the police first.
00:10:25.679 --> 00:10:28.799
Her brother gathered several friends instead.
00:10:29.039 --> 00:10:34.320
They got on their motorbikes and began looking for the men Lakshmi had named.
00:10:35.279 --> 00:10:40.879
According to later reporting, they eventually found them and forced a confrontation.
00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:43.919
It happened very quickly.
00:10:44.159 --> 00:10:48.559
Angry voices, shouting, blows exchanged.
00:10:49.039 --> 00:10:58.879
By the time it was over, the men who had spent weeks threatening Lakshmi were sitting on the floor while her brother demanded they unlock their phones.
00:10:59.679 --> 00:11:06.159
Lakshmi's brother took out his own phone and turned the camera onto the men now cowering on the floor.
00:11:06.559 --> 00:11:08.480
He started recording.
00:11:09.440 --> 00:11:11.840
This recording still exists.
00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:15.120
Watching it today is infuriating.
00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:21.360
Three young men sit on the floor with their knees pulled tightly against their chests.
00:11:21.600 --> 00:11:23.840
Their shirts are open and disheveled.
00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:26.000
There are cuts on their faces.
00:11:26.559 --> 00:11:32.000
One of them points across the room before anyone has even finished asking a question.
00:11:32.320 --> 00:11:33.279
It was him.
00:11:34.240 --> 00:11:36.399
Another immediately interrupts.
00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:39.759
No, he's the one who brought the girls.
00:11:40.240 --> 00:11:43.519
A third insists he never touched anyone.
00:11:43.759 --> 00:11:45.360
He only drove the car.
00:11:46.639 --> 00:11:49.600
The men are clearly panicking.
00:11:50.159 --> 00:11:55.120
They promise they'll delete everything, insist there are no copies.
00:11:55.519 --> 00:12:00.240
They beg Lakshmi's brother not to hand them over to the police or to hurt them.
00:12:01.360 --> 00:12:04.879
Lakshmi's brother had not gone looking for evidence.
00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:06.639
He was outraged.
00:12:06.879 --> 00:12:11.039
He wanted the men to face consequences for hurting his sister.
00:12:12.080 --> 00:12:16.320
Instead, he found far more than expected.
00:12:18.320 --> 00:12:24.879
The phones contained multiple videos of other young women going back years.
00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:29.440
One woman appears beside a roadside field.
00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:33.200
Another is trapped in the backseat of a car.
00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:38.879
In several recordings, the women seem to know at least one of the men.
00:12:39.759 --> 00:12:44.639
Many appear confused before they appear frightened.
00:12:46.639 --> 00:13:02.080
In a few weeks, by the time investigators had worked through enough of the material to understand what they were looking at, a picture that it seemed impossible to imagine began emerging piece by piece.
00:13:03.360 --> 00:13:09.279
Women being filmed without their consent, pleading for the recording to stop.
00:13:10.080 --> 00:13:12.399
Some women try to fight back.
00:13:13.519 --> 00:13:20.799
The women didn't appear to know one another, yet the men seemed to be using the same playbook with them.
00:13:21.519 --> 00:13:25.919
A young woman would be approached through common friends or through social media.
00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:32.159
A friendship or romantic relationship would develop between one of the men and the woman.
00:13:32.480 --> 00:13:35.200
Conversations would happen for months.
00:13:36.320 --> 00:13:40.720
The woman would eventually receive a phone call just as Lakshmi had.
00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:57.360
Then came the meeting, the assault, the recordings, the threats, the demands for money, sometimes jewelry, sometimes repeated sexual exploitation.
00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:03.840
News reports at the time described hundreds of photographs and videos.
00:14:04.799 --> 00:14:10.480
Police eventually identified dozens of women who appeared to have been targeted.
00:14:10.799 --> 00:14:15.039
Doctors, college students, teachers, hairdressers.
00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:18.879
None of these women had contacted the police.
00:14:19.440 --> 00:14:22.720
Some had been victims of blackmail for years.
00:14:23.519 --> 00:14:32.720
Until the police called their homes or knocked on their doors, each woman had believed she was living in her own private hell.
00:14:33.120 --> 00:14:36.720
Each believed she was completely alone.
00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:41.759
But the phones suggested the opposite.
00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:45.360
Each recording connected to another woman.
00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:54.559
And the women led investigators toward the same names, the same vehicles, and the same methods.
00:14:55.360 --> 00:15:02.000
The scale of what had been happening in Polacchi was only beginning to come into focus.
00:15:04.559 --> 00:15:06.799
Let's go back for a moment.
00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:12.240
Lakshmi's brother and his friends had handed the phones over to the police.
00:15:12.799 --> 00:15:19.120
The small police station in Polacchi wasn't prepared for what sat on that desk in front of them.
00:15:20.080 --> 00:15:24.799
At first, the case didn't look like the beginning of a national scandal.
00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:32.000
Investigators initially brushed aside the case as a confrontation between two groups of local young men.
00:15:32.399 --> 00:15:39.759
Injuries, counterallegations, several suspects whose families were already known in local political circles.
00:15:41.039 --> 00:15:45.120
One of the officers finally unlocked the first phone.
00:15:45.519 --> 00:15:47.279
He opened the gallery.
00:15:47.919 --> 00:15:49.279
There was one video.
00:15:50.399 --> 00:15:51.840
Then another.
00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:53.600
Then another.
00:15:54.159 --> 00:15:56.480
His thumb kept moving.
00:15:57.519 --> 00:16:01.200
Each recording showed a different young woman.
00:16:01.519 --> 00:16:03.039
Some were crying.
00:16:03.360 --> 00:16:08.799
Others struggled to push the camera away while voices nearby laughed.
00:16:09.360 --> 00:16:12.559
One woman kicked wildly at the men surrounding her.
00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:15.919
Another pleaded with them to stop recording.
00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:22.080
The timestamps stretched backwards through months, then years.
00:16:22.720 --> 00:16:25.759
At first none of it made any sense.
00:16:26.639 --> 00:16:30.639
Then certain details began repeating.
00:16:31.759 --> 00:16:34.720
The same young men appearing in the background.
00:16:34.960 --> 00:16:37.600
The same car, the same voices.
00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:43.279
So the officer opened another file, then another.
00:16:43.919 --> 00:16:47.200
The similarities became harder to ignore.
00:16:48.559 --> 00:16:53.279
Outside the police station, very little changed over these weeks.
00:16:53.600 --> 00:16:57.279
Buses still dropped off students at schools and colleges.
00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:00.080
Tea stalls filled up in the afternoon.
00:17:00.320 --> 00:17:03.919
Parents waited for daughters to return home from class.
00:17:04.640 --> 00:17:16.960
Most people in Polaci had no idea that inside a police evidence room, investigators were beginning to realize that they weren't dealing with a handful of assaults.
00:17:17.359 --> 00:17:24.240
The phones pointed to an organized operation that appeared to have targeted women over several years.
00:17:24.720 --> 00:17:28.480
Every device they examined widened the investigation.
00:17:28.720 --> 00:17:34.160
Every new video suggested there were women who still hadn't been identified.
00:17:35.519 --> 00:17:39.200
And that discovery also created a problem.
00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:42.000
Finding the women.
00:17:43.599 --> 00:17:49.759
Many of the faces on those phones belonged to people police couldn't identify immediately.
00:17:50.160 --> 00:17:56.559
Even when investigators eventually worked out who they were, there was another obstacle.
00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:03.440
Coming forward demanded far more than finding the courage to report the assault.
00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:11.119
It meant walking into a small town police station where anonymity was almost impossible.
00:18:11.839 --> 00:18:19.200
There was no way to quietly hand over a phone or leave a statement without attaching your name to it.
00:18:19.920 --> 00:18:33.119
The women had to identify themselves, describe the assault step by step, and trust that the people listening could protect them before the men who threatened them found out.
00:18:35.119 --> 00:18:41.759
And even if the investigation remained confidential, another fear waited outside the station.
00:18:42.559 --> 00:18:44.720
Would their parents stand by them?
00:18:45.119 --> 00:18:49.359
Would relatives ask why they'd agreed to meet the men in the first place?
00:18:50.079 --> 00:18:57.440
Would neighbors whisper about the videos long after everyone had forgotten the names of the men accused of recording them?
00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:03.759
The recordings had been created to keep victims silent.
00:19:04.559 --> 00:19:11.519
Sitting in that evidence room, investigators were beginning to understand how effective those recordings had been.
00:19:12.559 --> 00:19:18.400
Some of the women in the videos had lived with the threats for months, others for years.
00:19:18.880 --> 00:19:25.839
And until the police came looking for them, many had never told a single soul what had happened.
00:19:28.079 --> 00:19:37.119
As some investigators worked through the seized devices, others began the painstaking process of identifying the faces in the videos.
00:19:37.839 --> 00:19:40.400
Then came the phone calls.
00:19:41.440 --> 00:19:45.359
For many families, the conversation arrived without warning.
00:19:45.759 --> 00:19:49.759
A police officer asking whether their daughter could come to the station.
00:19:50.079 --> 00:19:53.599
No explanation, only that it was important.
00:19:54.960 --> 00:19:57.440
Imagine receiving that call.
00:19:57.680 --> 00:20:02.480
Perhaps your daughter's been leaving for college every morning as she always does.
00:20:02.799 --> 00:20:05.759
Or she's been teaching at a nearby school.
00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:11.359
Or spending long days working at a salon before coming home in time for dinner.
00:20:13.200 --> 00:20:18.079
Then an officer tells you, there are videos they need your daughter to see.
00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:25.359
For some families, that conversation was the first indication that anything had even happened.
00:20:26.160 --> 00:20:29.680
For others, the signs had been there all along.
00:20:30.640 --> 00:20:37.519
A daughter who stopped wearing the gold necklace her parents had given her because it had already been handed over.
00:20:38.960 --> 00:20:47.359
A young woman who silently deleted Facebook and Instagram, and then shrugged when friends asked why they could no longer find her online.
00:20:49.359 --> 00:20:58.160
A student who no longer stayed after class, no longer met friends, no longer wanted to leave the house unless she had to.
00:20:59.599 --> 00:21:04.640
The men accused in the case understood the world these women lived in.
00:21:05.119 --> 00:21:11.920
In Polacci, a daughter's actions could become a conversation about her parents, her brothers, her sisters.
00:21:12.559 --> 00:21:18.640
For many women, that future felt just as real as the threats pinging on their phones.
00:21:19.200 --> 00:21:23.039
They already knew how the conversation would unfold.
00:21:23.279 --> 00:21:31.839
A father asking why she'd agreed to meet this boy, an uncle wanting to know why she'd been speaking to a young man in the first place.
00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:36.799
The scrutiny would settle almost entirely on her.
00:21:38.079 --> 00:21:44.400
Several women later told investigators they had paid money because they believed they had no choice.
00:21:44.960 --> 00:21:48.559
Others returned when the men demanded to meet again.
00:21:48.880 --> 00:21:54.319
Each decision made sense in the narrow world the blackmailers had created.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:01.519
Worth borrowing money.
00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:09.519
If another meeting meant protecting your parents from humiliation, perhaps you endured one more afternoon.
00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:18.480
By the time investigators began contacting the women identified from the phones, they were asking for far more than a statement.
00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:31.680
They were asking the women to revisit the worst day of their lives, to trust that the people listening would see them as victims rather than suspects in their own suffering.
00:22:33.119 --> 00:22:35.839
Some found the strength to do that.
00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:39.440
Many, understandably, never did.
00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:44.079
The rumors arrived before the facts.
00:22:44.400 --> 00:22:51.359
Nobody seemed to know exactly what had happened, only that several young men had been arrested.
00:22:51.759 --> 00:22:54.400
Only that videos existed.
00:22:55.119 --> 00:23:00.400
Inside the police station, investigators were still trying to put names to faces.
00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:04.799
Outside, the town was trying to do the same thing.
00:23:05.279 --> 00:23:09.279
Some people wanted to know which girls appeared in the videos.
00:23:09.519 --> 00:23:12.319
Others wanted to know who the men were.
00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:19.279
For the families of the women, every rumor brought its own kind of dread.
00:23:19.599 --> 00:23:22.960
People talked, they speculated, they guessed.
00:23:23.359 --> 00:23:35.200
And in a town where families often know one another through schools, workplaces, marriages, and generations of shared history, rumors travel fast.
00:23:38.319 --> 00:23:42.480
Then the violence spread beyond the original complaint.
00:23:42.880 --> 00:23:49.119
According to reporting at the time, Lakshmi's brother was attacked by associates of the accused men.
00:23:49.839 --> 00:23:55.920
The assault was serious enough that photographs of his injuries began circulating publicly.
00:23:56.880 --> 00:24:03.680
People who had only been half paying attention suddenly started paying closer attention.
00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:09.839
Because now there were visible signs that something much larger was unfolding.
00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:20.079
Not just allegations or rumors, but violence, attempts at intimidation, questions that refused to go away.
00:24:20.319 --> 00:24:23.200
Why had Lakshmi's family been attacked?
00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:26.799
What exactly had been found on these phones?
00:24:27.200 --> 00:24:29.599
How many women were involved?
00:24:30.319 --> 00:24:33.680
Local media began covering the case aggressively.
00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:37.759
Television crews arrived from all over the country.
00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:45.119
Political leaders began commenting publicly, and women's organizations demanded answers.
00:24:46.079 --> 00:24:51.279
As more details emerged, outrage began replacing speculation.
00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:56.160
A single allegation is easy for people to dismiss.
00:24:56.880 --> 00:24:59.200
Dozens are much harder.
00:25:00.079 --> 00:25:06.799
And while the public conversation grew louder, investigators kept running into the same problem.
00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:12.640
Many of the women appearing in the recordings still didn't want to come forward.
00:25:13.440 --> 00:25:16.079
Some refused to make formal statements.
00:25:16.559 --> 00:25:18.880
Others never responded at all.
00:25:19.440 --> 00:25:26.799
The fear that had protected the men for years had not disappeared simply because reporters arrived.
00:25:28.319 --> 00:25:32.880
If anything, the attention sometimes made that fear worse.
00:25:33.519 --> 00:25:36.720
Because every headline brought new scrutiny.
00:25:37.119 --> 00:25:41.680
Every television debate reminded families of what was at stake.
00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:48.000
Public outrage, unfortunately, does not erase public judgment.
00:25:49.680 --> 00:26:00.319
Investigators have long believed the number of women identified in the seized phones represented only a fraction of those who had actually been targeted.
00:26:00.960 --> 00:26:06.640
And as the investigation widened, another question refused to go away.
00:26:07.440 --> 00:26:12.720
How had this continued for years without anyone stopping it?
00:26:15.839 --> 00:26:20.480
As the investigation grew, attention slowly shifted.
00:26:20.799 --> 00:26:26.319
People began asking what the police had done after Lakshmi first walked into the station.
00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:29.759
And what they hadn't done.
00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:35.599
One of the earliest decisions would become a source of lasting criticism.
00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:48.480
According to reporting at the time and later court records, the initial First Information Report, or FIR, focused primarily on the robbery of Lakshmi's gold necklace.
00:26:49.200 --> 00:27:01.599
The allegations of sexual assault were there, but many lawyers, activists, and opposition politicians argued they'd not been handled with the urgency the case demanded.
00:27:02.319 --> 00:27:04.559
Then came another blow.
00:27:05.039 --> 00:27:08.720
Lakshmi's identity began circulating publicly.
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:14.799
Under Indian law, survivors of sexual assault are entitled to anonymity.
00:27:15.359 --> 00:27:20.079
Yet her name and personal details quickly became known.
00:27:20.400 --> 00:27:23.440
Women's rights groups demanded answers.
00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:31.200
Lakshmi's family suddenly found themselves dealing with the very thing they had feared from the beginning.
00:27:31.599 --> 00:27:32.559
Exposure.
00:27:33.599 --> 00:27:43.359
Instead of feeling protected after coming forward, they found themselves at the center of a story the entire country was beginning to watch.
00:27:45.839 --> 00:27:52.160
At the police station, journalists now waited from early morning until well after sunset.
00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:55.359
Satellite vans lined the streets.
00:27:56.160 --> 00:27:59.359
Every new development was breaking news.
00:27:59.920 --> 00:28:05.519
Investigators continued comparing statements and trying to identify more women.
00:28:06.559 --> 00:28:12.640
The pace of the investigation had also changed, but so had the pressure surrounding it.
00:28:13.359 --> 00:28:16.480
Politicians argued about it at rallies.
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:20.400
Soon another allegation entered the story.
00:28:20.880 --> 00:28:26.319
Some of the accused were reported to have connections to local political figures.
00:28:27.039 --> 00:28:32.079
Opposition parties accused the state government of trying to shield influential people.
00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:35.359
The government rejected these claims.
00:28:35.680 --> 00:28:46.720
Very quickly, the case stopped being only about the crimes themselves, and rather became a test for whether the investigative process could be trusted.
00:28:47.920 --> 00:29:01.039
The concern grew loud enough that within weeks the Tamil Nadu government transferred the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation, India's premier federal investigative agency.
00:29:02.960 --> 00:29:08.160
For the survivors' families, this transfer actually brought some hope.
00:29:08.640 --> 00:29:11.440
But it also reflected a growing reality.
00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:20.240
The questions surrounding Polacchi were no longer confined to a single town or a single group of young men.
00:29:23.200 --> 00:29:28.400
By the spring of 2019, Polacchi no longer felt quite the same.
00:29:28.960 --> 00:29:35.599
Parents who had once thought little of a classmate offering a ride home began asking more questions.
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:37.039
Who is he?
00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:38.799
How do you know him?
00:29:39.279 --> 00:29:41.759
Some young women deleted Facebook.
00:29:42.079 --> 00:29:44.880
Others removed photographs from Instagram.
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:50.000
Women's organizations organized demonstrations across Tamil Nadu.
00:29:50.480 --> 00:29:55.759
Students marched on college campuses carrying placards, demanding accountability.
00:29:57.279 --> 00:30:07.440
Activists repeatedly urged the public to stop searching for the videos, stop forwarding rumors, stop trying to identify the women.
00:30:08.079 --> 00:30:14.799
The people who deserved scrutiny, they argued, were the men accused of recording the assaults.
00:30:15.759 --> 00:30:18.079
Yet that proved difficult.
00:30:19.039 --> 00:30:27.599
Even as outrage spread, familiar queries continued appearing beneath news reports and television debates.
00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:30.240
Why did she trust him?
00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:32.160
Why meet him alone?
00:30:32.480 --> 00:30:37.519
Those questions had haunted survivors long before the investigation began.
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:42.400
Now they were actually being repeated across the country.
00:31:01.759 --> 00:31:09.920
Yet the case kept returning, pulling them back into events they had spent years trying to move away from.
00:31:27.519 --> 00:31:31.920
Messages, videos, call records, contacts.
00:31:32.720 --> 00:31:43.759
In 2024, a special court convicted the nine accused men, finding that they had kidnapped, sexually assaulted, filmed, and blackmailed survivors.
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:47.839
The court sentenced the convicted men to life imprisonment.
00:31:49.119 --> 00:31:57.680
For Lakshmi's family and for many of the women who had chosen to testify, the verdict brought a measure of recognition.
00:31:59.359 --> 00:32:08.720
But the conviction, of course, didn't return the years lost to living in fear or answer every question the case left behind.
00:32:09.599 --> 00:32:13.759
Many women who appeared in the recordings were never identified.
00:32:14.640 --> 00:32:17.680
And, of course, some never came forward.
00:32:18.960 --> 00:32:25.519
This reminds us that there are always stories that just don't reach a witness stand.
00:32:27.039 --> 00:32:36.480
On the night Lakshmi stood outside her front door, she believed she was about to tell her family about the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:44.720
She couldn't have known she would also uncover years of violence that had remained hidden behind silence and fear.
00:32:45.519 --> 00:32:50.960
The recordings found on those phones exposed how shame could be turned into a weapon.
00:32:51.680 --> 00:32:57.200
The women in those videos lived with the belief that speaking would destroy their lives.
00:32:57.599 --> 00:33:01.920
And this was exactly what the men accused in the case relied upon.
00:33:03.599 --> 00:33:12.240
The Poleggi case is often remembered for the number of videos investigators recovered, or the number of women they eventually identified.
00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:18.640
But those numbers can make it easy to forget what this investigation really began with.
00:33:19.440 --> 00:33:26.559
One young woman walking into her home and deciding she couldn't do this alone anymore.
00:33:27.119 --> 00:33:30.079
That decision changed everything.
00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:33.920
It led investigators to a collection of phones.
00:33:34.160 --> 00:33:37.039
Those phones led to dozens of women.
00:33:37.359 --> 00:33:42.720
Those women revealed an operation that had been unfolding for years.
00:33:43.759 --> 00:33:48.480
Even today, the Polacci case leaves behind uncomfortable questions.
00:33:49.119 --> 00:33:53.920
About the way public shame can become as frightening as violence itself.
00:33:54.640 --> 00:34:04.079
About how people remain silent because they believe the consequences of speaking will fall more heavily on them than on the people who harmed them.
00:34:05.680 --> 00:34:13.599
For Lakshmi, the story changed the moment she stepped across the threshold of her home and told her family the truth.
00:34:14.159 --> 00:34:19.280
For everyone else, it began only after she did this.
00:34:23.679 --> 00:34:25.840
This is missing context.
00:34:26.079 --> 00:34:28.880
New episodes are released every Wednesday.
00:34:29.119 --> 00:34:36.880
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