Remembering Aruna Shanbaug

When Aruna Shanbaug passed away on May 18, 2015,  the sisters and the hospital that had treated her mourned a second death.

She had died once before, 42 years before that, when she became the victim of a brutal sexual assault, which began left The attack had left her in a vegetative state for over four decades.  

The Supreme Court's passing of  euthanasia on  Friday  reminds one of her more than anyone else; she had been  under one of the world's longest comatose states and Pinky Virani's book about her plight, Aruna's story: The True Account Of A Rape And Its Aftermath, and the subsequent fight for  euthanasia for her had brought much attention to the issue.

She was 25 when she went into comatose; she was around 50 when Virani had brought the world's attention to her; she was 66 when she died of pneumonia.

On November 27, 1973, Aruna, who was a nurse at King Edward Memorial Hospital hospital in Mumbai, was sexually assaulted by a sweeper in the same hospital,  Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki.

Attacking her from the back, Sohanlal wrapped a dog chain around her neck and yanked her back with it.

First, he attempted vaginal penetration, but finding that she was menstruating, he sodomised her instead. He used the chain to prevent her from moving during the act. The next day she was found in the basement in a pool of blood.

The asphyxiation cut off the oxygen supply to her brain, leaving her in a permanent vegetative state (PVS).

Sohanlal was caught and convicted and served two concurrent seven-year sentences for assault and robbery,  and strangely not for rape. His "unnatural sexual offence" was never mentioned.

After being released from jail in 1980 was missing from public view, and according to the last reports, was working as a sweeper in another hospital.

Virani, on January 24, 2011, moved the Supreme Court for euthanasia. The court set up a panel of experts to examine her.

The court turned down the mercy killing petition on March 7, 2011.  However, in the landmark decision, it allowed the 'passive euthanasia'  of withdrawing life support to patients in PVS, but rejected outright the 'active euthanasia' of ending life through the administration of lethal substances.

While refusing the mercy-killing of Aruna, the court had then laid a set of tough guidelines under which passive euthanasia can be legalised through a high-court monitored mechanism in the country.