Chapter 9: Family in Ruins

After watching the video, I slumped in my chair, my vision going black.

I pressed my hands to my temples, the world spinning. My wife stood beside me, speechless, her own eyes red. “Rohan, yeh sab kaise theek hoga?” she whispered.

‘Single mother, three-year-old daughter, molestation…’

Those words ran in a loop through my mind, poisoning every thought.

‘Shop owner, covering up everything, police shirking responsibility…’

‘No case filed…’

It was the perfect storm—every trope that made people furious, shared everywhere with my face attached.

A single mother, with nowhere to turn, was forced to report under her real name online, hoping netizens would help her and the authorities would intervene and give her justice.

Her sob story, so familiar in WhatsApp forwards, made people rally to her side. My reputation didn’t stand a chance.

Once this video was posted, it instantly went viral, racking up over a hundred million views.

Even people in my own family group started forwarding the video, asking, “Yeh tumhara colony ka Rohan hi hai na?”

Netizens were furious, sharing the video everywhere.

“Justice for the child!” “Hang the rapist!” “Society must be safe for women and children!”

They joined in denouncing me, the so-called scumbag shop owner who preyed on a three-year-old girl.

People who had never met me now spat my name like a curse. My son’s friends’ parents stopped answering my wife’s calls. The society’s watchman wouldn’t look me in the eye.

Angry netizens dug up my personal information and flooded the internet with endless insults.

Within hours, my phone number, address, and even my school marksheet were posted online. People called to hurl abuses. My WhatsApp beeped every two seconds with threats and filth.

“You deserve a horrible death!”

Someone sent a message in all caps, “Teri maut hogi, tu bachke nahi jaayega!”

“You beast, a monster that stalks at night.”

My son, reading over my shoulder, started crying. My wife threw her phone at the wall and broke it.

“How could you not even spare a three-year-old girl, you scum!”

Every message was poison. “Bachche bhi ab tujhse darenge!”

In just a few days, I received hundreds of thousands of abusive messages.

My email, SMS, Instagram, all filled with filth. Even my suppliers stopped returning my calls.

The entrance to my shop was covered with funeral garlands, and people threw garbage at it.

Someone even smeared black paint on my shutter. My shop, my pride, now looked like a haunted ruin.

My parents’ and wife’s information was leaked, and they were harassed and insulted.

My mother’s phone rang day and night. “Tera beta darinda hai!” someone screamed at her. My wife started taking cabs, too afraid to walk home.

I was surrounded by swarms of reporters.

They camped outside my house, camera lights glaring even at midnight. My father, frail and diabetic, nearly fainted seeing the crowd.

They pounded on my car windows, cameras pointed at my bewildered face.

The noise, the flashes, the screaming questions—they battered my senses. My mouth went dry every time I left the house.

“This shop owner molested a three-year-old girl.”

That headline was plastered everywhere. People I’d never met spat at my feet.

The media bombarded me with questions:

“Can you explain the accusation of molesting a three-year-old girl in the storeroom?”

Reporters shoved mics into my face, waiting for me to slip.

“Did you delete key CCTV footage to cover up the crime? Is that true?”

Every question was a trap. The lights were so hot I felt faint.

“You have children too—how could you do something like this?”

As if I wasn’t human, as if I had no right to answer.

“Aren’t you afraid of karma for hurting a child like this?”

Their questions cut deeper than any knife. In India, karma is more real than the law.

...

The endless accusations and abuse nearly drove me insane.

I stopped eating. I barely slept. Every time my phone vibrated, I jumped. My son started wetting his bed again.

Molesting a three-year-old girl—such a crime would make anyone a pariah, condemned by all, never able to clear their name.

In our country, even if you’re proven innocent, the stain never leaves. “Kuch toh kiya hoga,” people whisper.

I published the police investigation results, which included proof that in May, during the time the mother claimed I molested her daughter—

I posted scanned police reports, travel tickets, everything. My social media was filled with desperate pleas. “Main bekasoor hoon!”

I wasn’t even in Pune.

I was visiting my bua in Lucknow—dozens of people saw me there. My travel tickets, hotel bills, even a photo from my cousin’s wedding sangeet were uploaded.

The police also checked my travel and spending records, confirming I had no opportunity to commit the crime because I was away.

The inspector posted an official notice on the police station’s Instagram, stating I was not even present in the city. But no one seemed to care.

At home, my mother lit a diya and prayed for our izzat, her lips moving silently in front of the gods. My wife quietly folded her saree pallu over her head as she cried in the kitchen, stifling her sobs so the neighbours wouldn’t hear.