Carmen Greentree
Carmen Greentree, a pro surfer, aged 22, was held captive and repeatedly raped by Rafiq Ahmad Dundoo on a houseboat named ‘Y H Sunbeam’ on Dal Lake in Jammu and Kashmir. The gruesome incident happened in May 2004, when she was just 22 years old.
Carmen Greentree came to India for a course at the Dalai Lama’s ashram in Dharamshala. She fell victim to scammers posing as government tourism operators. Greentree was convinced to fly to Srinagar airport by the scamsters and was picked up from Srinagar airport on May 27 by Rafiq Ahmad Dundoo. Dundoo told her she would spend the night on a houseboat, named Y H Sunbeam, on Dal Lake before getting on a bus to Dharamshala.
“Soon she was forced to sleep in a dingy bedroom on board where she was raped dozens of times and beaten whenever she asked to leave,” reported the Daily Mail.
Rafiq Ahmad Dundoo (left) and his brother (right). They are pictured in a photo nine years before Ms Greentree’s abduction
Rafiq Ahmad had taken her passport, documents, and money and made her believe that if she was found outside without documents, she would be thrown in jail. He also made her believe that soldiers or local men could gang rape and murder her if they came across her outside without a man.
‘I didn’t think I was ever getting off that boat, I thought I would die there one way or another,’ she told Daily Mail Australia. The family members of Ahmed, who lived on the boat while she was trapped there also did not help her escape.
She was finally saved by the armed police forces after her captor Rafiq Ahmad made ‘a greedy mistake’ when he tried to get more money from her family. ‘She was dramatically rescued when armed police boarded the boat and whisked her to safety,’ the report said.
Ms Greentree detailed her ordeal to the police after she was taken to New Delhi with bodyguards. Following her complaint, the Police arrested Rafiq Ahmad Dundoo and his brother Shabir Ahmad Dundoo and retrieved her passport and most of her belongings.
‘I was supposed to go back to India and give evidence in court but I couldn’t go through with it, I wish I had,’ she said. After spending six months in jail charged with rape, the culprits were released as Greentree was too traumatised to testify against them.
Now 37 and married with three children south of Sydney, she has written a book about her harrowing ordeal that took place 16 years ago.
