Rashmi always thought she was her father’s favourite daughter. After all, it was she who had to give him his morning and nightly dose of medication, keep his puja room ready and occasionally even help him with his business.

It took the Calcutta girl, now 25, all of 10 years to understand that her father was also sexually abusing her. The abuse started when she was nine. When she missed her period at 17, it took a chat with a doctor to reveal that she had been pregnant with her father’s child — which had to be aborted.

Last week, the country reacted with horror when a daughter alleged that her father had been raping her for the last nine years in Mumbai. She went to the police when she learnt that he had also started abusing her younger sister. The Mira Road incident — as the case is now being called — has prompted other victims to go public. But it has also focused attention on the thousands of silent sufferers of parental sexual abuse.

The young are speaking up, but by some estimates they constitute just 2-3 per cent of those who are abused. Still, there are more cases of young men and women directly asking for help today than before, says Anuja Gupta, founder and executive director of Rahi Foundation, a Delhi-based support group for adult incest survivors. Even two or three years ago, most of them used to say that a friend needed help.

Acknowledging this kind of abuse, even to oneself, is hard enough, says Vivek, a 26-year-old Calcutta man who was sexually abused by his father, a successful chartered accountant. “It’s tough talking about being a male survivor of sexual abuse. But telling someone that the person who ruined your life was your own father is something which I just hate doing.”

Vivek remembers how his father used both failure and success to abuse him. When he would fail in mathematics — which was often — and his father’s eyes rested on the single red mark on his report card, Vivek knew the “punishment” that was to follow. If he did well in his exams, his father took him out for a treat, and “treated” himself at night. “I would pretend not to know what was happening,” says Vivek.

While his anger is mostly directed at his father, Vivek is also bitter that his mother did nothing to help him.“During the healing process, victims express a lot of anger at the mother for not saving them from the abusive father, despite knowing,” says Vidya Reddy of Tulir, a Bangalore-based support group for incest survivors.

Some, like Rashmi’s mother, look the other way. She thought there was something amiss, but preferred to shut out the suspicions. A few, like Mira Road’s Anjana Chauhan, the mother of the two abused girls, help their husbands. Chauhan’s brother, Vijay Parmar, says he wondered why she forced her elder daughter to go home with her husband, Kishore, ahead of the rest of the family, after spending the day at Parmar’s house. “I suspect my brother-in-law wanted to abuse his daughter that day,” says Parmar, who also blames his sister for abetting the crime.

Worse still, mothers have also sexually exploited their children. Roger, a 19-year-old Calcutta teenager, says his relationship with his mother is an incestuous one. His mother insisted that he slept in her room after her husband died when Roger was a small boy. Though she has never directly asked him to have sex with her, there have been nights when her gestures and motions have conveyed her “un-motherly” thoughts, he says. “The incestuous relationship between us is a silent but deadly one,” he says.

At awareness programmes conducted by Elaan, a Calcutta-based support group for incest survivors, 3-4 per cent of boys the campaign reached said they had had sexual encounters with older women relatives. Many, believes Pranaadhika Sinha, founder president of Elaan, would have been referring to their mothers. “It is not uncommon to find mothers smothering their sons — emotionally and sometimes sexually,” says Sinha. “Initially the boys experience an ego boost, but end up feeling used.”

With the lack of freedom, Roger says he is unable to lead a regular life, for fear of the “emotional drama” that always follows. His mother feels threatened if he divides his attention. “I feel like her husband and not her son,” he says.

Like many child abusers, Roger says his mother talks of having been sexually abused in her childhood by an uncle who would make her sit in his lap and touch her inappropriately. When she disclosed this to her parents, they called her a dirty girl. But today, “She calls me dirty even if I go out on a date,” he says.

Reddy says there is a “very high correlation” between domestic violence and incest at home. Chauhan, for instance, used to keep his daughters on a tight leash by subjecting the family to bouts of violence. “In fits of fury, he would bang things — the TV or fridge. Recently, he smashed his own Samsung mobile phone to bits,” says Parmar.

Though Parmar says Chauhan’s eyes reek of lust and is not a man to be trusted, not all parents who sexually abuse their children give out such signals. Rashmi says her father was the archetypal family man. “He earned well, spent time with his family, played sports and prayed regularly,” she says.

Roger calls his mother “beautiful and immaculate” and a “perfect role model.” There’s nothing strange there, points out Reddy. “Child abusers are usually highly intelligent and can therefore manipulate their victims creatively, making them complicit partners,” says Reddy. “While some parents would say it was their special way of showing affection, some others would say it was a game they were playing,” she adds.

The damage wrecked by Vivek’s father will take a long time to undo. “The wounds remain and my trust is broken,” says Vivek, who now shies away from fostering relationships. He is also preparing to move out of home. “Despite my biological connections, I prefer saying I have no family,” he adds. He has disclosed details of his abuse to his sister, only to protect her from his father.

Roger’s mother’s actions have left him confused about his sexual orientation. He is averse to sexual contact with women — something that is common to survivors of incest, especially those abused by their parents, says Sinha.

Rashmi who now studies abroad — far away from her father who has been banished by the family elders — appears to be healing well after undergoing two years of intensive therapy. She too has faced relationship problems. “But I hate neither men nor women. I’m just grateful to god to have found the right kind of support,” she says. It will be a while before the two sisters of Mira Road will be able to say that.