'She was battered, broken, traumatised'

Aruna  Shanbaug  died a painful death but she gave one of the biggest gifts to the nation, says journalist, activist and writer Pinki Virani who took her plight to the Supreme Court.

The court allowed “passive euthanasia” on May 7, 2011.

“My Aruna died a painful death…she was broken, battered and traumatised…she died a legal death today,” Virani told Deccan Herald on Monday, hours after Aruna’s death at the KEM Hospital in Mumbai. “I would say…Alvida Aruna...she never received a shred of justice till the day she died,” she said.

 “The 2011 verdict is a landmark judgment,” she said, adding that it has been validated. “It can be allowed (subject to strict laws) for a person who is brain dead, or in coma, on a ventilator in a persistent vegetate state,” she said, adding it is applicable when medical and biological improvement does not and cannot take place.She said that Aruna who died without getting justice gave the law of passive euthanasia. “In the last 36 months, she was in the  ICU twice,” she said.

She added that every day, every moment was painful for her. “She had suffered for 42 long years,” said Virani, who had written ‘Aruna’s Story: The true account of a rape and its aftermath’ – around the time she turned 50.

She had travelled to Shanbaug’s village – Haldipur in Karnataka, met all her relatives and also her then fiance.

She  found police and court records, as also detailed hospital records, and discovered that the rapist walked as a free man in six years and that no hospital colleague, doctor or nurse came forward to file any report with the police which would have helped put the rapist away for much longer.