Last month a 36-year-old home-maker from Kerala's Idukki district was the toast of the nation with the media eulogising her determination to fight for three years to prove that the woman in a porn video clip is not she.
In the hurry to shower the well-deserved praises on Sobha (she had bravely told the media not to hide her identity), second of three daughters of an elderly couple from Thodupuzha and mother of three children, the media, police and public failed to ask a few crucial questions. Why did the ordeal of this innocent woman last for three years? Why did it take so long to prove that the woman in the clip was not Sobha? Is the cutting-edge technology of Kerala police not good enough to crack such a case within days? Why did two forensic laboratory tests fail to clearly say the woman in the video is not Sobha? These questions are important because the number of cyber crimes is increasing in India at such a pace that even people who have never touched a mobile phone in their lifetime are also falling prey to the Net's vicious designs.
Before Onmanorama digs out answers to the key questions, a low-down on the Sobha nude video case.
Sobha seeks Manorama's help
One night in December 2016, a year after the nude video clip surfaced, Sobha called Manorama News to say that she was evicted by her husband from her own home at Kadavanthra in Ernakulam and sought the TV channel's help. Anil Emmanuel, the Manorama News reporter, rushed to the spot and Sobha told him that she was thrown out of the house because of a fake pornographic video clip featuring a woman having similar looks of Sobha. Her husband alleged that the woman in the video was Sobha.
Angry and desperate to prove herself right, Sobha appeared before the news camera without hiding her face and told the reporter she was trapped in a false case. Her boldness to not hide her face in front of the camera drew appreciation from people across the country and her case was taken up by the police seriously.
Ex-employee's canard
According to a complaint filed at Ernakulam South police station in 2015, Nissar, a former employee at the business firm of Sobha’s husband, sent the video clip to Litto, another employee in the firm, saying that the woman in the video is Sobha. Litto forwarded it to a WhatsApp group of male employees in the firm in November 2015. Soon, the clip reached Sobha's husband, who believed that the video was of Sobha, and he moved out of the house with their children. That was just the beginning.
Dark days in Sobha's life
“I was making banana fries for my children on one December afternoon in 2015 when the school van's driver called me to say that my husband had picked up the kids from the school. I was surprised because my husband never finds time for the children due to his busy work schedule. I was the person who took care of their studies and health check-ups. My happiness did not last long as I got another call from my husband soon, saying that he and children would never return to the house where we were all happily staying together,” Sobha told Onmanorama about the sad day.
Sobha was married to the owner of a shop selling electrical and electronic accessories at Kadavanthra in 2001. An economics graduate herself, Sobha also started helping her husband in his business and opened another electrical store at Thevara in Ernakulam. The couple have two daughters, aged 16 and 10, and a son, aged 14.
They led a peaceful life till their business boomed and they started earning huge profits. “I have two sisters-in-law and two brothers-in-law. They were all jealous of our comfortable life. My mother-in-law, who occasionally stayed with us, used to tell my husband fabricated stories about me," Sobha told Onmanorama.
Nissar's video bomb
Soon after Nissar, now an NRI who worked in the couple's shop for a short period earlier, sent the video to his friends, it reached Sobha's husband through a well-wisher. Instead of seeking legal help, he immediately called up all his colleagues and apologised for his wife's misbehaviour. He also called Sobha's relatives to complain against her and moved out of their house with their children to a rented accommodation in Kochi.
“As soon as my husband and children left home, my relatives asked me to file a complaint seeking custody of my children. I had already filed a complaint with Ernakulam South police station against the person who circulated the porn video. I approached the same station to seek custody of my kids. They directed me to Child Welfare Commission (CWC), who asked my husband to produce the children before it," Sobha said.
Twenty-two days after they left her, Sobha met her children at the CWC's office. Sobha claimed that by then her husband had convinced the children that their mother betrayed him. Though the second and youngest of the children, then aged 11 and 7, couldn't understand the meaning of their father's words, they comprehended that their mother was a bad woman.
The eldest daughter, then 13, told CWC that her mother sent ‘nude videos to the people at Pappa’s office’ to shame him. While the two elder children refused to stay with Sobha thereafter, the youngest girl wanted to go home with her mother.
Ordeal at CWC
“I still remember the day I met my children at CWC. I was overjoyed to see my kids once again. But my eldest daughter scorned at me and my son didn’t even bother to acknowledge my presence. It was my youngest daughter who came running to me and spent more than two hours hugging and kissing me,” Sobha said.
Her husband, who was accompanied by his mother and an elder sister at the CWC, had brought an order from the high court, staying all CWC proceedings in the case. “They snatched my youngest daughter from my arms. They pulled her away from me. I didn’t hold her back because I knew my daughter would be hurt. She hugged me tightly and cried. All the CWC members were watching this. Some of them even recorded all these scenes,” Sobha said.
Divorce plea
Her husband also filed a divorce petition and the family court ordered to send the children once every two weeks to spend two days and a night with Sobha. According to Sobha, this continued for a couple of months but her husband soon forced the children to file a complaint with the child-line alleging that Sobha assaulted them and made them starve during their visits. The child-line report said Sobha was mentally disturbed and it was inappropriate to let her keep the children. Sobha lost all contacts with her kids thereafter. She waited on roadsides and church corridors to get a glimpse of them.
Half-baked forensic reports
Ernakulam South CI Siby Tom had investigated the case. He seized the video and arrested Litto. “Litto named Nissar during interrogation. We knew that Sobha was not the woman in the video because she was very adamant in her complaint and she didn’t hesitate to play the video on her own mobile phone before anyone asked for it. Sex abuse victims are usually reluctant to exhibit the evidence material involving them,” says Siby.
However, Siby admitted that he tried to discourage her from proceeding with the legal fight. “I knew that Sobha’s husband was determined to proceed with the divorce case. I felt he was looking for a reason to seek divorce and the video was just a coincidence. I told Sobha that it is better not to disclose the details of the case and spoil her image. But she was determined to prove herself right for the sake of her children,” he recalled.
Following Sobha's insistence, Siby sent the video clip to Kerala state forensic laboratory in Thiruvananthapuram. The result took months to come and when it arrived it was not conclusive. It did not specifically say that the woman in the video was not Sobha.
“The first laboratory report failed to prove that I wasn’t the woman shown in the video. It didn’t say there is any resemblance between me and the woman shown in it. They couldn’t prove it otherwise either. Disappointed, I filed a petition for recheck,” Sobha said.
The CI forwarded the video once again to the same laboratory. The second report said the figure shown in the video is ‘misleading in its resemblance with the petitioner'. This weakened Sobha’s hope. By then, one year had passed.
Hubby wants Sobha to move out of house
Her husband came to know about the forensic laboratory's report and pleaded in the family court that Sobha must move out of his house. Soon he got an order from the court to provide Sobha an ‘equal accommodation’ and monthly allowance of Rs 20,000. The same day the husband and his relatives forcefully evicted Sobha and her ailing father from the house.
“My father was over 70 years old. His right side was paralysed after a stroke in 2014 soon after my mother died of dengue fever. After my husband and children left me, my father used to stay with me at Kadavanthra. In the first week of December 2016, when I was away from home, my husband, mother-in-law and sister-in-law forced my ailing father out of the house. My father requested them to wait till I returned home but they didn’t listen. I returned around 9pm to see my father sleeping on the verandah,” Sobha recalled her ordeal. Her husband did not allow Sobha to enter the house and take her clothes.
Manorama's role
“I feel that my role in this case is God’s design,” says Anil Emmanuel, who helped Sobha to get justice. Anil was walking back to his office at Panampilly Nagar in Kochi after having tea from a shop nearby when a motor-cyclist (an acquaintance of Sobha) stopped him and asked for his phone number repeatedly in December 2016. “I refused to answer him initially. Then he said it was for sharing a news story. I gave him my mobile number,” Anil told Onmanorama.
After a couple of days, Anil received a phone call at midnight. It was Sobha who called him seeking help after her husband evicted her from the house.
“I initially did not see a story in it. I rushed to the spot with a cameraman to meet Sobha, who was standing on the road. I did not understand a single word she said but I asked the cameraman to record everything. She showed me a video clip and said it spoiled her family life. I told her to go to the police but she refused. She was determined to spend that night at her house itself,” Anil said.
By then, Sobha had moved her father to her maternal aunt’s house at Panangad, Kochi. Anil returned to office, leaving Sobha outside her house. A couple of days later, Anil called Sobha to inquire about her condition. She had returned to her paternal home at Thodupuzha.
This time Anil decided to feature her in MMTV's ‘Choonduviral', a special programme pointing fingers at society. MMTV crew visited her Thodupuzha home and recorded a detailed interview. Sobha was featured in 'Choonduviral' and the interview was aired on December 11, 2016. When MMTV offered to blur her face, Sobha refused it, saying that she doesn’t have to fear the cameras as long as she is convinced about her innocence.
“I knew that Sobha has a long way to go. I introduced her to deputy superintendent of police E S Bijumon, who is a close friend. A cyber investigation expert himself, Bijumon appraised Kerala's DGP Loknath Behera of Sobha’s plight. Behera called Sobha to his office earlier this year and discussed the case in detail,” Anil added.
Case reopens
The top cop directed to reopen the case and handed it over to Ernakulam assistant commissioner of police K Laljy. “I had met Laljy sir earlier to request his interference in the case. He kept on telling me that he is helpless until the case is handed over to him,” Sobha said. After the DGP's involvement, the video was sent to Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in Thiruvananthapuram for detailed examination.
Laljy was sure about Sobha’s innocence. “If you show me a photograph of me standing somewhere in the US, I won't be scared a bit. I would rather laugh it away and show it to everyone I know. That is exactly what Sobha did. She didn't have any reluctance to play the video in front of anyone. She has been calling police stations for years to prove her innocence. What else do I need to trust this woman,” Laljy asks.
Sobha was being examined by a general physician before the video content was shown to the same doctor seeking opinion. C-DAC officials told Laljy to bring a practising gynaecologist to examine Sobha before they show the video to the doctor. Before the C-DAC prepared their report, the gynaecologist gave statement before the investigation officer saying that the body featured in the video doesn't belong to a woman who gave birth to three children. Soon, C-DAC also sent its detailed scientific analysis report, making it clear that the visuals belonged to a young woman who has never been into labour.
Family’s response
Laljy called Sobha’s husband to the police station to tell him that the police have ruled out all possibilities of Sobha’s involvement in the video. He was not ready to listen and alleged that Sobha would have recorded her nude video before giving birth to their children. “I was irritated. I asked him where were smart phones and WhatsApp in India when they got married in 2001. He just walked out of the police station refusing to answer my question,” Laljy told Onmanorama.
However, Sobha is overjoyed by the response she got from her friends, family and even strangers on social media. “My father called me to say he feels proud of me. My sister broke into tears when her colleagues congratulated her on having me as her sister. My friends and relatives called me umpteen times to motivate me. I missed all their love and care during the past three years,” an emotional Sobha revealed.
Fight continues
Sobha says she has set a good model of honesty and perseverance for her children to follow. “Hadn’t I fought till the end, my children would have had a shameful story about their mother to share with their friends. Now, I have given that story a happy ending so that they can proudly narrate it before anyone,” she said.
Laljy has arrested Litto again and added Section 354A (outraging the modesty of a woman) and Section 67A of IT Act in the chargesheet. Sobha is determined to continue her fight till she finds the source of the video clip and the person who started circulating it in her name.
“I don’t have any other aim in my life other than exposing this conspiracy. I want to know the real source of that video and the intention behind targeting me,” she said.
Sobha also wants to challenge the child-line report that states that she is mentally unsound. “The report was prepared without conducting any kind of background check. It is a one-sided narration. I am going to start my battle to prove all the cases my husband filed against me wrong, one by one,” Sobha said.
Why the delay
In 21st century heinous crimes are being cracked with the help of technology and the sleuths across the world are increasingly depending on digital data to solve murders and other high-profile offences. However, when the world is turning tech-savvy it seems Kerala cops are yet to catch up with the new trend if the Sobha case is any indication. It took almost three years for this innocent woman to get justice, that too partially. Her fight to find the real culprit and ensure proper legal punishment for him has just begun only.
When Onmanorama probed further to find out the reasons for the delay and why the initial two forensic reports failed to clear the doubt, certain facts came out.
According to a senior officer in Kerala police, who is also a cyber crime expert, the reason for the forensic laboratory failing to conclusively say that the woman in the video is not Sobha is unexplained. He says the laboratory has enough facilities to detect such doctored videos and it has the tech know-how also. Even if the first report failed to give a conclusive report, the second one should have come up with a definite statement. However, the senior officer stated that the priority in the beginning was not to prove that the woman in the video was not Sobha but to find whether the accused person circulated the clip. As far as the case is concerned, that is enough to book the person under IT Act. But the issue here is Sobha has been claiming that the video is not hers and the second report stated that there was a resemblance. This aggravated Sobha's ordeal. Any police force probing such cases should be more humane and the report should not have left it to the imagination of people to decide whether the clip was of Sobha or not.
Another argument put forward by the investigating officers and a few cops was that the forensic laboratory was burdened with loads of cases and the delay was due to workload. In that case, after taking so many months the laboratory should have come up with a complete report or it should have stated that the video should be sent to a better-equipped laboratory like C-DAC for further probe. This would have reduced Sobha's agony and several trips to the police station. Finally, the DGP had to involve and the clip was sent to C-DAC. By then, years passed and Sobha suffered in silence.
It shows the sad state of affairs in the police department if a complainant has to wait for three years and approach the DGP to get a proper forensic examination of a video clip which wrecked the life of an innocent home-maker.
Lessons to learn
At a time when cops in UK are using even iPhone Health App to trap killers like in the murder case of Jessica Patel, sleuths in Kerala are taking three years and still struggling to decode who is the person in a video clip. It is high time for the police department to take scientific investigation seriously and latch on to the new methods to track down criminals who are more than happy to learn and misuse technology for their advantage. Sobha's fight is an inspiration for anybody who is trapped by the nefarious designs of criminals and a big lesson for the cops on why all investigations need to be completed with total commitment and humane touch.
(Onmanorama's efforts to get Sobha's husband's version met with a strong 'no' and he refused to answer Anil Emmanuel's queries also. We will add his side of the story as and when he opens up.)