Protests over 2012 December Delhi gangrape in photo essay

City-based photographer Chandan Gomes believes it is just sheer luck that he and his female companion escaped the grim tragedy, which befell a 23-year-old paramedic and her male friend on December 16, 2012.
On that fateful day both the couples were on travelling on different city buses headed in the same direction.
"It could very well have been us," Gomes, says recalling events of the night when the paramedic was brutally gangraped and her friend beaten up.
Gomes, who captured the national outcry post the gangrape incident and continued to document series of protests in the national capital over the past six months, has now put a photo essay up in an exhibition here.

The photographer recalls that on the very cold night of the incident, he was headed for a celebration to mark the first anniversary of a photography library he co-owned. While Gomes and friends celebrated, the paramedic was gangraped in the moving bus and her friend attacked in a gruesome manner.
"Next day, I woke up to this terrible news. At that point, it didn't register. But when I saw the photograph of my female friend I had clicked the previous night, it registered. It could have been us. And this realisation was shocking," Gomes told PTI.
"It came with a sense of guilt and I knew I had to join hundred others who were protesting for better policing and stricter punishment for rapists," he adds.

Gomes' series of photos on display begins with a shot of his female friend who accompanied him on the bus. Over a series of photographs, he weaves together the story of the protests that took place post the incident.