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As I read the news story of the 12-year old girl in Chennai who was raped by a group of men in her apartment building over the period of seven months, the first emotion that I felt was not anger but extreme incredulity and shock. Eighteen men working in the building where the girl lived with her family ganged up with the sole intention of sexually abusing and raping a young girl of 12. Reportedly, a total of 22 men were involved in the crime.

Oddly, my first thought was not about why they did it but how they got together for this.

These men weren’t a child-trafficking gang or relatives of the victim – these were unrelated normal people who were co-workers and colleagues servicing a building in Chennai. They were probably friends through work. They probably saw this young girl on her commute to and from school, playing with other kids in the compound or with her parents. They also might have spoken to the parents in social settings or if the tenants needed something. The 66-year-old elevator operator, one of the alleged rapists, probably knew everyone in the family and everyone living in the building.

How did the first man decide to tell another man about his intentions to rape, and in this case, his intention to rape a child?

How did they communicate on plans to snatch her away to one of these places – the terrace, vacant flats, and public bathrooms – to be raped? Did they use WhatsApp? Did they discuss plans daily? How did they gang up to get drugs to sedate her, to threaten her – and still hide it from her parents as well as other tenants in the building? What did the elevator operator say to her mother or her father when he saw them during the day?

And then we come to the all-important question – why?

I remember a time in my childhood where there was no mistrust of anybody, especially not of people who you saw every day, people your parents liked or smiled at, people who were supposed to be normal. I have had my school cab driver drop me off at home, fully aware that no one was at home and that I had a key in my bag.

I have walked into dense fields with my grandfather’s farm help – far enough for no one to hear my cries for help if something untoward was to happen. I was young, I was trusting, but I also was never taught to mistrust anybody who wasn't a stranger. We didn’t see stories like this – our parents were not scared to let us out of their sight for some time or worried about known and familiar men hurting their children.

Today, I know I will tell my 12-year-old cousin not to go riding her bicycle after 5pm. She probably doesn’t fully understand why the place she has called home since birth, surrounded by people she has seen and interacted with for years, is not safe anymore.

The underlying question is what is it that gives people like those in this gang to commit this horrific crime. These men had jobs, probably had families whom they went back to after the assault. There was no money involved as far as news reports go. This wasn’t a money seeking venture like trafficking. The sole aim of these men was rape of a 12-year old child.

Maybe it is the lack of fear for the law, or being assured that even if they get caught, their cases would get tangled in years of jurisdictional process and red tape-ism.

Maybe the perpetrators in this case know that someday, a distant day, human rights activists might turn up, like they did for the Nirbhaya rape case from 2012, asking to overturn death sentences handed out to rapists.

A lot of maybes, but some things are certain – that young girl has been traumatised for life, and so has her family. And as always, people will find blame in the parents or the victim.

We must hope for a society where parents need not be afraid for their kids every second of every day.