Experience of a girl from Karaikudi, India
(From the forumjar.com, re-casted by Colombocaner@gmail.com )
This
incident happened in 1996 when I was in the 12th standard in school. I
was attending a girls' school where I was an average student. We used to
have an occasional smoke during the school interval. I was not addicted
to smoking, but I felt like an adult when we smoked. For this, we had a
place outside the school premises which is used as some branch of a
government office. As we were senior girls, there was no issue of coming
out of the school during the intervals and going back in. One day when I
was alone in our smoking spot, I was caught by two lady constables passing the narrow pathway. They
told me that smoking in a public place is an offense and insisted I
accompany them to the police station. I have seen people smoking in
public areas before and after this incident. However, because they were admonishing me and telling me that I had broken the law, I thought maybe they were not lying.
They took me to a police station about 600 yards from the school. It was a Mahila
police station where all officers and constables were women. Once there, I
was produced before a lady inspector who seemed very busy and strict, although slightly smaller. She told me I would be
produced before a magistrate and probably be sentenced to jail time. I
was so frightened of what would happen if I was sentenced to jail. Hence I
was pleading with her to let me go this time with the promise that I
would never smoke again. She pretended not to be convinced by my
pleading and promises and said I needed to be punished for breaking
the law. Then in the same angry tone, she said if I could take caning in
the police station, she could let me go without being produced in the
courts. I did not have a choice other than agreeing to a caning, as being
held in the police station overnight and being produced in courts with
the possibility of jail time seemed a huge risk. Getting jailed would
have ruined my life, schooling, and future. Being caned
occasionally is not alien to a school child in India. I thought it would
be a caning like the ones administered by the school principal or the
teacher in charge of discipline while we were in junior school. Caning in the junior school is limited to several strokes on the open palm.
When
I agreed to undergo a caning, one of the constables told me to be seated
on a bench in the corridor where there were few other civilians. While sitting, I was worried about whether I would fall into trouble with
the school for not going back after the interval. The school took Truancy seriously, and the parents were always informed. Although
there was no corporal punishment in the senior school, having to come with the parents would be a considerable embarrassment apart from
the black mark on my disciplinary record. After about half an hour, a
lady nurse came to my seated area and called my name. I
stood up to say she was looking for me. She told me to follow her, which
I did. She took me to a room, closed the door behind her, and
proceeded to a table. I was told to sit in the chair opposite her. After that, she asked about my age, the names of my parents, what they do for a living, and some other questions. She made some notes on the papers
she had in her hand while talking to me. I was also asked whether I
was having my periods. I told
her I was not. After that, she said she had to examine me for any
previous injuries. I didn't comprehend what she meant by 'having to
examine.' When I gave her a puzzled look, she told me that she had to
see my buttocks to ensure that I didn't have any prior injuries. I felt
really embarrassed for being asked to show my buttocks to a stranger. At
the same time, I became apprehensive with the indication that I would be caned on the buttocks. Apart from an occasional slap or two
by a parent or by an adult, when I was a small child, I had never been
caned or punished in any other manner on the buttocks. The lady
continued to give me a no-nonsense look as if to say If I do not show
her my buttocks, I will be in some kind of trouble.
When
I was not doing anything, she said I should remove my churidar
(Salwar Kameez) pants and jatti. Then I stood up, pulled my churidar
pant down to the floor, pulled the jatti halfway down to my thighs, and raised the churidar top to my waist, exposing my buttocks to her. She
touched them and ran her hand on both cheeks as if she was inspecting
to buy some meat at the stall. After a couple of minutes, she said "ok" and
told me to pull my pants up. I pulled my jatti and churidar pants up. She then took her papers and walked out of the room, telling me to remain. I was so frightened and sweating in my palms and in the
face. I was dreading the thought that someone would walk into the room with a cane and start caning my behind. I could see
and hear people walking about outside the window, and I was also embarrassed that they would see or listen to me being caned.
After
about 20 minutes she returned to tell me that I had to go to the
first floor of the building. She walked with me to the bottom of the
staircase and remained there, and I was told to go up the stairs. On the
upper floor, there were bundles of documents and files all over, and there
were several small cubicles. In one of the cubicles, I saw the two
constables who brought me here. Seeing me, one constable came out of the
room and took me into a room at the end of the corridor. This was a
slightly bigger room without any openings other than the door. The other
constable, too, followed us. She told me that I would be punished by way of a 5 stroke caning. The
fear was building inside me, but I knew I had no other option other than
facing whatever that is to happen to me in their hands. So I nodded to indicate that I understood what she said. I was then told to remove all my clothes except my shoes and socks. When I heard that, my
head started spinning due to fear and embarrassment of my predicament. Reluctantly I started removing my school uniform. I pulled out my churidar top and
my pant. Then I removed my bra and jatti. This part was so embarrassing
to me as I have never been naked in front of anyone in my adult life. I
always keep my jatti even in my shower.
One of them curtly told me to place all the clothes on the table at the side of the room and
move to the wall where there was a fixed pole from the floor to the
roof. One lady constable
took a pair of handcuffs from her back pocket and handcuffed me to a
pole. I was then told to kneel down, and I complied. After that, one lady
constable went out of the room, saying she would get the lathi. The
other constable started telling me that the caning would be very
painful and how much I deserved to be thoroughly caned for smoking when I
was young and for breaking the law. She told me they intended
to take the skin off my behind to teach me a lesson I would not
easily forget. This made me so helpless and frightened about the caning
that tears started rolling down my face.
After a couple of minutes, the other constable came in with a long lathi. She also told me that the caning would be very
painful and told me to close my eyes if I wanted to. Although her tone was a bit kinder than the other constable, I started trembling after seeing
the size of the lathi in her hand. I could not close my eyes or take my
eyes off the lathi. I started sobbing while the
constable stood behind me and arched her hand back until the lathi
almost touched her back. Without warning, she hit my buttocks with
all her might. It felt like thousand needles piercing me at the same
time.
I screamed and started begging for mercy. I never thought a caning
could hurt that much. Meanwhile, she arched the lathi back, waited for a full minute or so, and walloped me right across my behind, which was already wobbling
uncontrollably from the intensity of the first stroke. This time it was
even more painful, and I was screaming from the top of my lungs. She was
caning me so ferociously as if I had personally done something terrible
to her to make her so furious with me. I looked back at her pleadingly, but her eyes were focused on my behind, and her facial expression, however, was as if she was doing something routine and mundane. My voice broke when I was screaming so loud because of the unbearable pain. I continued
to weep like a small girl and was writhing due to the intolerable
pain. I was trying to take my bottom away from the path of the lathi. Because I was handcuffed to the pole and on my knees, I could not
move away too much. She, however, did not stop in her 'mission' and hit me
once more with full force right across my buttocks. It was clear that whatever I did or how much I cried and begged, the caning would not cease. My
suffering continued with me begging to be spared while she was calmly
doing her business. I had never been in that much pain ever in my
life. She duly continued to cane me until she gave me all of the 5 cuts they promised.
I
was crying so much that no sound came out of my mouth. I was
gasping for air and felt my mouth had gone parched. I fell to
the floor due to the pain as soon as the other constable removed my
handcuffs. I was writhing on the floor in inexplicable pain. I felt like
my buttocks were burning and sitting in flames. There were big
thick welts across my buttocks but no blood. The
constables told me they only gave me 5 strokes as a young girl. They
said they would have caned me more thoroughly if I was bigger. I was
told to get dressed, meet the inspector to thank her, and leave the
police station. I returned to school and spent the rest of the time
sobbing in a toilet.
When I got home that day, I inspected my behind in the mirror and by bottom was a mess with many angry and purple welts.
The following day my entire body was aching apart from the pain in the buttock area. Despite that, I went to school as I didn't want a soul to find out I was stripped and thrashed in a police station. Although the pain subdued after about 4-5 days, the marks on my buttocks remained for 3 whole weeks before they disappeared. I never smoked in my life after that day at the police station. I also became a law-abiding person out of fear of enforcement authorities. The caning also wiped my cocky attitude out, which made my mother say that I had become very responsible. Little did they know what it took to take the insolence out of me as I never told anyone in the school or the family about my very embarrassing and painful experience on that fateful day.
Priya (Not my real name)
