Mumbai, April 18: After three months spent popping anti-depressants and sleeping pills in her home country, a South African woman has returned to Mumbai to bring to speedy justice the two men she accuses of drugging, kidnapping and raping her last December.

Twenty-seven-year-old Rehana Khan (name changed), whose dreams of a Bollywood acting career were shattered in two nights of trauma, wants to pursue the case in a fast-track court.

Two Indian fast-track courts have in recent months handed out rapid convictions in rape cases involving foreign victims, but Khan said she didn’t know about it.

“No, I wasn’t aware of these trends in the Indian judicial system. But I have faith in the judiciary. I need support from India and its people,” the daughter of a Durban-based tycoon of Indian origin said.

Her first task will be to try and block bail for one of her two alleged assailants, model-coordinator Sunil Morepani, at a sessions court tomorrow. The other, wealthy wine shop owner Suresh Krishnani, got bail in February.

Khan, raped repeatedly in a car and then in two hotels on December 27-29, had left for Durban on January 16 after identifying the two men in a parade at a city jail.

“I am completely shocked that one accused had been granted bail when I was away despite the heinous crime. I expected to see them in jail for ever,” she told The Telegraph at her lawyer’s office in Vile Parle in her heavy, South African accent.

Khan, covered in a black hijab to protect her identity, said that in the past few months, as she tried to find her bearings through therapy and counselling sessions, she kept receiving death threats over the phone.

“Unknown callers threatened to kill me if I returned to Mumbai. They also offered me bribes to settle the matter. But after what they did to me, I want them to be punished for life.”

Government and legal sources weren’t confident that her demand for a fast-track court trial would be met. They said Maharashtra had no policy on this, with the depth of public outrage influencing the government’s desire for quick conviction.

Khan, who says she is a trained graphic artist and had worked as a business manager, had arrived in Mumbai last September to try her luck in Bollywood. She enrolled with the Kishore Namit Kapoor acting academy in November and began taking spoken Hindi lessons.

Early in December, she met Gurinder Singh Bawa, owner of Bawa International Hotel, who raised her hopes.

“I met Bawa at JW Mariott Hotel through a common friend. He told me he is Amitabh Bachchan’s neighbour and knows several Bollywood personalities because he also finances films.”

Bawa invited her to dinner at his hotel on December 27. After the meal on the terrace, Bawa apparently asked her to wait in the Avalon pub on the ground floor, where Khan ordered drinks for a couple she met there, went to the toilet, and returned to finish her drinks.

“My next memory is these two raping me in a car. The effect of what I suspect was some kind of drug remained till I was dropped back,” Khan said.

She filed a rape case on December 29, giving two names and alleging they may have spiked her drinks and raped her repeatedly before dropping her 48 hours later near the Andheri house where she stayed.

The police used the credit card transactions by the two suspects at the pub to trace them to Ulhasnagar, a township 60 km from Mumbai. Investigation revealed they were regulars at the pub and had detained Khan in two shady hotels in Ulhasnagar and raped her.

On February 2, the police filed a charge-sheet. Bawa was made a witness. On February 26, Krishnani got bail on the ground that the sex was consensual and that his custody was not required since he had already been charge-sheeted.

Sultana, Khan’s elder sister who has accompanied her on this trip, said, “She sent me a text message that she had been drugged, kidnapped and raped. I was shocked and tried to contact the Indian embassy. But they asked me to approach the police.

“We are a well-known family in South Africa (their father owns one of the country’s largest supermarket chains), and it was traumatic for the family to cope with this.”

Khan’s lawyer Falguni Bramhabhatt said his client would approach Mumbai police, the courts, and the government with a demand for trial in a fast track court.

“Both the accused are from Ulhasnagar, and the crime happened in Ulhasnagar hotels. We fear the accused would try to influence witnesses. One has already got bail, and the other has applied for bail.”

Quick trials are an insurance against witnesses turning hostile. A fast-track court in Alwar came out with a conviction this month only 23 days after an MBA student was accused of raping a German, and a Jodhpur court had taken only 16 days last year to nail the accused in the rape of another German.

Recently, a Mumbai additional sessions judge sentenced a constable to 12 years in jail within a year of the rape of a college student inside a police post at Marine Drive.

“In the Marine Drive case, the accused was an on-duty policeman and the crime sparked a public furore, unlike this one,” a senior police officer said. “The victim can approach the government or the courts with such a demand. Bombay High Court could then decide if it should be sent to a fast-track court.”