Taran Adarsh, a prominent film critic, took to Twitter on Friday to announce the theatrical release date for the much awaited movie ‘Ajmer 92.’ This hard-hitting picture, produced by Reliance Entertainment in collaboration with U&K Films Entertainment, Sumit Motion Pictures, and Little Crew Pictures, will be released on July 14, 2023.
Based on true events, Ajmer 92 tells the story of the grim plight of as many as 250 girls who were trapped, sexually exploited and blackmailed for years by caretakers of Ajmer Dargah, including many influential men in the area and Congress leaders in the city of Ajmer in Rajasthan in 1992.
‘AJMER 92’ TO RELEASE ON 14 JULY… A #RelianceEntertainment presentation, #Ajmer92 will release in *cinemas* on 14 July 2023… Stars #KaranVerma, #SumitSingh, #SayajiShinde and #ManojJoshi… Directed by #PushpendraSingh… Produced by #UmeshKumarTiwari. pic.twitter.com/ddKnAedh6D
— taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) May 26, 2023
The film stars Karan Verma, Sumit Singh, Sayaji Shinde, Manoj Joshi, Shalini Kapoor Sagar, Brijendra Kalra, and Zarina Wahab, among others.
Speaking about the movie, film producer Sushil Sachdeva said, “We made this film so that the entire country knows what the young college girls had to go through. This is all we have tried to show to the public.”
The plot of the film uncovers one of the largest rape scandals India has ever witnessed, in which hundreds of girls were blackmailed into being violently raped by influential people with political connections. The majority of the girls were from wealthy homes, the daughters of IAS and IPS personnel, but the perpetrators were never brought to court.
We have seen many cases of rape, gang rape and exploitation in our country. But the sheer scale and brazen impunity in the Ajmer scandal is something very unusual and had shaken to the conscience of the entire country.
The 1992 Ajmer Rape and Blackmail Scandal
In the year 1992, it was revealed that over 250 girls were raped and blackmailed in Ajmer, Rajasthan. The news of the scandal broke after a local paper, ‘Navjyoti’ published some nude images and a story which spoke about school students being blackmailed by local gangs.
It all started with Farooq Chishti grooming a female student of Sophia Senior Secondary School and raping her. He took objectionable photographs of the minor and threatened her to introduce other girls to him. Later, those girls were raped and blackmailed.
Farooq Chishti was the president of the Ajmer Youth Congress while two other accused, Nafis Chishti and Anwar Chishti were the vice-president and joint secretary respectively of the city Congress unit.
Numerous girls were trapped, sexually exploited and blackmailed for years by Farooq Chishti and his gang, including many influential men in the area with political connections. Since the main culprits were associated with the Khadims, the religious caretakers of the Ajmer Dargah, and had power and political links, the matter was suppressed by the police. Reports mention that over the years, many victims had even committed suicide.
The gang and its territory kept growing, adding more pain and suffering. As per reports, all the girls were between the ages of 11 to 20. When the scandal got exposed, the police initially stalled the matter because of political pressure. However, the protests spread rapidly in the region, and eventually, police arrested several accused in the case. After years of investigation, eight of the accused were convicted, including Chishti.
The editor of Navjyoti, Deenbandhu Chaudhary, had admitted that the local law enforcement authorities were aware of the scandal almost since a year before the story broke, but they allowed the local politicians to stall the investigations. Even Choudhary himself was hesitant before running the story, the reason was the perpetrators of the crime belonged to the family of ‘Khadims’. Khadims are the families of traditional caretakers of the Ajmer Dargah, they claim to be the direct descendants of the first followers of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisty and hold significant influence in the local communities. The police had stalled the case because the local politicians warned action against the accuse would lead to massive communal tension.
Chaudhary stated that finally, they decided to go ahead with the story because that seemed to be the only way to wake the local administration into action. Finally, the police lodged an FIR against eight of the accused. Further investigations led to 18 men in total being charged and tensions ran high in the town for several days. Most of the accused were Muslims, many from the families of Khadims and most victims were young Hindu girls.
What followed next was another saga of political influence and administrative incompetence. There are speculations that the matter was suppressed to the point that many witnesses and victims turned hostile, and many details got buried. The witnesses and victims were threatened and blackmailed as well to stop them from coming forward. Some of them turned hostile due to social stigma. The case is often compared to the infamous Rotherham Child Sexual Exploitation Scandal.
The social stigma ran to such an extent that for years after the incident was exposed, people looking for prospective brides in the area used to ask if the girl was one of “those victims”.
