Just Another Rape Story

[KashifAsrar]

The following report appeared in TOI dated 30th Oct 2006.
Kashif


JUST ANOTHER RAPE STORY


A Dalit mother, daughter are paraded naked, raped and killed in a village. Two brothers of the same family too are murdered in public. The news passes through the nation like a whimper and vanishes without a trace. A classic Indian crime story from Nagpur, and a more familiar national shrug


Sabrina Buckwalter | TNN



The village of Khairlanji, near Nagpur, is an unremarkable settlement of brick huts and cement houses. Less than 200 families live here. Dirt roads run between flat farmlands, and the eye sees great sprawling distances. There was always a gaping silence in this village, even before September 29 when an upper caste mob, according to eyewitnesses, paraded a mother and her 17-year-old daughter naked, raped and killed them. Two other members of the family, brothers aged 19 and 21 too were murdered. Their bodies were dumped in a canal. Thirty eight men have been arrested and they are being held under police custody.
The gruesome incident occurred 780 kms from Mumbai, too far out it appears to muster national outrage. The news of this brutality did not enter the mainstream news in any significant fashion.
Why this happened is a mystery that readily resolves itself depending on who you are talking to. Some say that one Siddharth Gajbhiye, a police patil (village cop) had an affair with 45-year old Surekha, wife of Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange and the mother of three children. This, apparently, churned the villagers who, after a string of events, took the drastic step. Others say that the Bhotmanges, a landowning dalit family, were battling a land dispute with the upper castes. They owned five acres of land once, back in 1996, before two acres were taken away to build a road. Then again, when their land was demanded for road construction they objected, and the tensions caused by that defiance resulted in their slaughter.
Whatever be the cause, there is not much doubt over what happened on the evening of September 29. A mob broke down the frail door of a house that is nothing more than a heap of loose bricks without the adhesion of mortar. The mob was armed with bicycle chains, axes and bullock cart pokers. Surekha, and 17-year-old Priyanka, a 12th standard topper, were paraded naked through the village. According to eye-witnesses, one of them was even strapped to a bullock cart. They were then taken to a crude open-air theatre stage where, according to villagers, people yelled to the sarpanch to let them sexually assault the women. Meanwhile, Priyanka’s brothers, 21-year-old Sudhir and 19-year-old Roshan, were murdered. After Priyanka and her mother were raped, they too were murdered. The body of Priyanka was fished out from a canal on September 30. The other bodies were recovered a day later. In the hut of the Bhotmanges, a bottle of chilli powder is still spewed all over the dirty floor, supposedly used to disorient the women during their rape. A red underwear is still crumpled in the corner next to the kitchen, and a wrench and a rolling pin lie askew in front of a scattered Buddhist altar. While the carnage was underway, the head of the family, Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange had managed to escape.
It is not clear what exactly led to this assault. A chain of disconnected events, however, emerge from police records. On September 3, Siddharth Gajbhiye who was accused of having an affair with Surekha Bhotmange, was beaten up by a mob. Neighbours say that Siddharth was a known friend of the Bhotmanges and used to help them during some incidents connected to the land dispute. Gajbhiye filed a police complaint against 15 men, 12 of
whom were arrested and released on bail on
September 29, the day of the rape and murder. The 12 men were spotted by eyewitnesses among the rampaging mob.
The first photographs of Priyanka’s body, that were taken by a social organisation, showed rods sticking out from her genitals. But when her body was taken to the Mohadi hospital for the postmortem, the sticks and rods had disappeared. The postmortem report by Dr A J Shende dated September 30 clearly indicates that “no injuries noted to the external genitals” were found on her body, nor was there any decomposition. The pictures showing foreign objects stuffed inside her are the only proof anyone has now that a sexual assault occurred. The second postmortem executed on both Surekha and Priyanka, dated October 6, noted that now, “the bodies of both the deceased were heavily decomposed…the injuries over the perineum region and external genitalia could not be identified.”
The forensic swabs that were taken to Nagpur to ascertain semen presence have tested negative. Suresh Sagar, police superintendent of Bhandara district in which the village is situated, is one of the few who is overseeing the case. He denies rape occurred, despite the eyewitness accounts. Pankaj Gupta, inspector general of Nagpur, too denies rape had taken place. He told this reporter that Surekha and Siddharth were close, that villagers didn’t approve of their relationship. He also said that Siddharth gave emotional and financial support to Surekha. He even bought her a mobile phone. Bhaiyyalal, her husband, says none of this is true. He hints that many things have been misconstrued to paint a bad picture of his family. According to Siddharth Gajbhiye, some of the perpetrators are BJP members. A report issued by the Manuski Advocacy Centre mirrors this s t at e m e n t . B h a s k a r Kawad, one of the four main suspects, is said to be related to a local politician.
The people of Khairlanji are not very vocal on the matter. V Khandate says that he was in a hospital recovering from chikungunya on September 29. The Khandate household is just two homes away from the main village area where the public beatings and rape allegedly took place. The time was approximately 7 pm (according to Airtel phone records), but they said they were asleep at that time. They spoke with this reporter, though, at 8 pm while eating dinner. Upas Rao Khanate, the sarpanch of the village, says he too was sleeping and has no knowledge of the events of that night.
Rajendra Gajbhiye was willing to speak as he is the brother of Siddharth. He had called Priyanka that evening after hearing that a mob had been looking for his family but had gone looking for the Bhotmanges instead when they couldn’t find them. She told him that her family was being attacked. For his willingness to speak he was beaten and threatened, he says, by A R Rajurkar, the principal investigating police officer.
Bhaiyyalal, for his pain and suffering, has been offered a cheque for Rs 4,50,000 by the Maharashtra government. The Atrocities Act mandates that Rs 2,00,000 be paid to the survivors for every family member murdered in mob violence. No offer has been made to refer his case to the CBI to save the investigation from local prejudices.
Bhaiyyalal, his whole family wiped out, wants the perpetrators to hang. His desperate wails, unburdened to anyone who is willing to listen, now echoes in the desolation of Khairlanji’s perpetual anonymity. The little media interest that had surfaced when the bodies were first fished out from a canal has now almost entirely disappeared.
Apparently, this is just another crime story in India today.

 

[ADIL SHERDIL]

Dont want to start politics on this article but i feel sad and angry on the facts that we are part of such society we call our self strong educated and almost have everything but we lack humanity. Pakistan and India is full of illiterate bunch but both have strong armies to fight each other but no one to protect the poor. S

Dont want to start politics on this article but i feel sad and angry on the facts that we are part of such society we call our self strong educated and almost have everything but we lack humanity. Pakistan and India is full of illiterate bunch but both have strong armies to fight each other but no one to protect the poor. Such people and their families should be made example death is not the answer. RAPING women has become so common but the problems lies within.

 

[t-birds]

Indian men accused of raping woman for second time as payback for filing earlier charges

Several men in India accused of gang-raping the same young woman for a second time are alleged to have done so as payback for their low-caste victim filing charges against them.
Indian police arrested three suspects, some of whom had been charged with a previous attack on the woman, an officer said.

The men include two who were arrested for raping her in 2013 and were currently out on bail as the case edged its way through India's creaking legal system, police said, while the third was also accused of the earlier attack.

"We will be collecting DNA samples from the victim and the three accused to ascertain whether the allegations are true ... the three arrested, they are the same men who had raped her earlier," said Pushpa Khatri, the investigating officer.

India was again soul searching as the fresh details emerged in the horrifying case of sexual and caste violence combined.

Women's rights campaigners in India said they wanted MPs to do more to change the country's culture, instead of pursuing continually tougher punishments for attackers.

"Whenever a rape case grabs attention, including this latest one in Rohtak, the tendency is to concentrate on how you can introduce draconian measures against the accused, so death penalty for the accused," said Kavita Krishnan from the All-India Progressive Women's Association.

"And now there's a whole media campaign in certain sections of the media for how you should deny bail to every rape accused."

Ms Krishnan said that was taking the easy option.

"Focus on the survivor, focus on empowering the survivor, and supporting her, so that cases can actually be followed through because after all she is the person on whom that entire case rests," she said.

Rights campaigners call for end to rape case settlements
In a hospital in the northern Indian state of Haryana, not far from New Delhi, the 20-year-old student recounted in a quavering voice how she was gang-raped.

"I was coming out of the college," she recalled. "I was scared seeing them. They took me in the car."

In her faltering speech, the woman's torment was confrontingly apparent.

Her family said the attack was retribution — a vile statement of caste power by a group of men incensed that their victim, a member of India's Dalit or so-called "untouchable" bottom-rung caste, would dare pursue justice.

"These five accused had raped her in 2013 also, they gang-raped and threatened her," the victim's brother said.

He said the family was driven out of their home village after resolving to press charges.

"We even went to the high court to issue summons to them. We left Bhiwani out of fear," he said.

It is a sadly familiar story for Dalits.

But what was frustrating women's rights campaigners like Ms Krishnan was the familiar way these stories often played out.

"Compromise documents are very common in rape cases in Indian courts, where even judges are willing to accept the idea that you know, a compromise document can be a basis to acquit someone of rape," she said.

She said a simple step towards changing culture would be banning settlements in rape cases, where for example the accused agreed to marry his victim.

After years of campaigning for increased support of rape victims, Ms Krishnan said she could not understand why people who protest their suffering did not follow through in demanding access to justice for India's most socially and economically downtrodden.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-21/india-gang-rape-accused-arrested/7647284

 

[PARIKRAMA]

2006 thread started again with 1 comment only. First of all thread is in wrong section. Such sensitive topics are not to be discussed.

@waz @WAJsal @mods
Request you to please close this thread.
Regards,