Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 13.10.12
Dalits unite to oppose crime against women - Deccan Herald
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/285038/dalits-unite-oppose-crime-against.html
Thangadh killing: CID proposes to drop attempt to murder charges against 8 dalits - Indian Express
Dalit killings: PSI cooked up false charges - DNA
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_dalit-killings-psi-cooked-up-false-charges_1752150
Just a number - The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/just-a-number/article3987667.ece
Deccan Herald
Dalits unite to oppose crime against women
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/285038/dalits-unite-oppose-crime-against.html
GAUTAM DHEER CHANDIGARH, Oct 12, 2012, DHNS
Even after nearly two years of the infamous Mirchpur village incident in Haryana that shocked the nation over the killing of Dalits and burning of their houses by some upper caste people, over 70 affected families refuse to return to their homes.
They fear for their lives and property. Since 2010, these families have been camping with whatever little they are left with in makeshift hutments at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Hisar.
The recent incidents of rape in Haryana – including the shocking case which forced Congress president Sonia Gandhi to reach the doorsteps of the family of a minor Dalit girl who immolated herself after being gang raped – have left women feeling vulnerable.
Vexed over a spate of crime against women, several Dalit activists will now gather in Panipat on Sunday under the aegis of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights to draw an action plan to deal with the 'deteriorating situation'.
They plan a massive protest by Dalit women next month at Delhi's Jantar Mantar.
General secretary of the All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch, Asha Kotwal, said the idea is to make the authorities act.
"We will hold a meeting in Panipat, and later hold rallies in the state's towns and villages where recent reports of atrocities against Dalit women have surfaced," she said.
Advocate and state coordinator of the forum Savita Singh said enforcement of the provisions of the SC and ST Act was poor in Haryana. She said apart from rapes, Dalits are humiliated in many other ways. In some instances, people belonging to influential upper castes still won't permit Dalits to share their water source, she said.
Indian Express
Thangadh killing: CID proposes to drop attempt to murder charges against 8 dalits
In a startling revelation, a CID (Crime) report submitted before the magisterial court concerned in Surendranagar district has proposed to drop the charges of attempt to murder against eight dalits who have been arrested for the alleged violence in Thangadh village on September 22 that culminated into the killing of three dalit youths later in police firing.
The CID (Crime) officials has done so while shooting down some of the salient factual ingredients into the police FIR lodged against the dalits adding that they have been found to be false during investigation.
The report has been circulated among media on Friday by an Ahmedabad-based human rights organisation — Dalit Hak Rakshak Manch.
According to the details, the Thangadh dalit killing issue had started following an alleged tussle between Dalit and Bharwad communities in Thangadh on September 22 night. Following the tussle, police had allegedly rushed to the spot to control the situation. However, according to Thangadh police, the mob of dalits went out of control following which they had to lob tear gas shells and fire in the air.
The then police sub-inspector of Thangadh police station, K P Jadeja, had subsequently got lodged an FIR against eight dalits alleging them of various criminal offences including attempt to murder. According to Jadeja's official complainant in the case, many police officials were seriously injured in the rioting act of the dalits. At present, all the eight accused are lodged in jail.
The case is being probed by police inspector H K Rana on behalf of CID (Crime). And on October 6, Rana submitted a report to the magisterial court concerned while proposing to drop serious charge of attempt to murder against the eight dalit accused.
In his report, Rana stated that during his investigation no evidence was found to charge the accused with attempt to murder.
Accessing the report in a press conference on Friday, Valjibhai Patel and Raju Solanki of Dalit Hak Rakshak Manch said, "...from this conclusion...it is concluded that PSI Jadeja is possessing criminal mind nurturing anti-dalit attitude."
"...criminal minded Jadeja misused his position and power by fabricating wrong complaint against innocent and unarmed Dalits by creating false evidences and imposing serious section of 307 (attempt to murder)...Jadeja should be arrested in this case for fabricating such a false FIR against the dalits," they added.
DNA
Dalit killings: PSI cooked up false charges
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_dalit-killings-psi-cooked-up-false-charges_1752150
Published: Saturday, Oct 13, 2012, 17:54 IST
By Roxy Gagdekar | Place: Ahmedabad | Agency: DNA
The CID (crime), Gujarat state, has revealed in its report that police sub-inspector KP Jadeja has unnecessarily added the sections of attempt to murder against the Dalit mob in two different complaints filed by him. This is another instance of his casteist approach.
Jadeja is responsible for the killings of three Dalit youths in the Thangadh firing.
In his report submitted to the court of the judicial first class magistrate, Chotila, the investigating officer and police inspector, CID crime, HK Rana had clearly mentioned the facts that counter the complaint filed by Jadeja against the Dalits.
Rana said Jadeja had used his service revolver illegally as he had been transferred from the district. He had falsely mentioned in the complaint that he had snatched the service revolver of one of his colleague, BC Solanki, and fired in the air. However, the report, said Jadeja had used his own revolver and fired five rounds from it.
Despite killing three Dalits, the Surendranagar police filed two complaints against them alleging that the crowd had tried to kill police officers on duty. The investigation was later handed over to the CID (crime).
Rana had found in his investigation that the mob comprising of Dalits was not aggressive. It did not attack any policeman or individual or damage public property. He requested the court to repeal the section of attempt to murder against the Dalits.
The Hindu
Just a number
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/just-a-number/article3987667.ece
She may have a mobile phone and satellite television, but if the impoverished low-caste woman seeks justice, she will draw a blank.
There is an epidemic of rape in the state of Haryana. Literally. Twelve instances of rape in the last month, 367 in the first six months of this year, 733 last year. And these are only the reported ones.
The shocking news of a 16-year-old Dalit girl in the state immolating herself after she was gang-raped is not just another statistic. (She was from Jind district, where the majority of these rapes have occurred in recent weeks.) It speaks to at least two depressing realities in this sordid tale. One, that if you are a poor woman who is raped, you cannot even imagine a life where there will be justice. Second, if you are a poor woman and a Dalit, then the chances of justice are even slimmer.
The list of the recent rape cases in Haryana makes depressing reading:
Nineteen-year-old newly-married girl abducted by four men in Gohana town near Sonipat and gang raped.
Thirteen-year-old girl raped by her neighbour in Rohtak.
Fifteen-year-old mentally challenged Dalit girl raped in Rohtak.
Thirty-year-old married backward caste woman gang raped inside her house by three men with guns.
Class XI teenage girl gang raped by four men in Gohana town.
Sixteen-year-old Dalit girl gang raped in Jind district
And so on.
Marriage at 16?
In some ways Haryana is a case apart. It has one of the lowest sex ratios in India – 833 women to every 1000 men. A decade back, when data about the extent of the declining sex ratio became known, an increase in sexual assault and violence on women was predicted. But for Haryanvi women, an additional factor is the continued dominance of caste-based khap panchayats, consisting exclusively of men, who lay down the law for everyone regardless of the laws of the land. These rules include special rules for women, how they should dress, behave and exercise their rights. Only the brave or foolhardy dare to question or defy the diktat of the khaps. Even if women obey khap laws, their lives are not free of violence as is evident from the increasing incidence of rape. Incidentally, the khap suggest that rapes will decrease if girls are married off at 16, even if the law of the land makes 18 the minimum age, because then they will not 'stray'.
Against these realities, we have to worry about all women in Haryana. But Dalit women face a dual burden, that of caste and gender. According to a report in this paper (The Hindu, September 26, 2012), a study by the organisation Navsarjan of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, revealed that there were 379 cases of atrocities against Dalit women between 2004 and 2009. Of these, 76 were cases of rape or gang rape. By early 2011, only 101 cases (26.6 per cent) or under one third, had been decided.
Clearly, Haryana is not alone when it comes to atrocities against Dalits, including Dalit women. But what has to be addressed urgently is the complete lack of any belief that the criminal justice system can work for the poor and the lower castes. It is only this type of frustration, combined with the shame that society heaps on the victims of rape instead of turning its wrath on the perpetrators, that can force a 16-year-old to end her life in one instance, and the father of another teenager who was raped to end his.
Not friendly places
There is no point in speaking in statistics. Go to any rural area practically anywhere in India and ask women whether they have the courage to go on their own to a police station to report a rape or any other crime. Nine times out of ten they will tell you that they don't consider police stations friendly places. And this is three decades after campaigns by women's groups led to important changes in the rape law and in the rules governing the police in their dealings with women. The only women who have been able to put these changes to effective use are those who are organised, have the backing of a collective and know what it is to fight the system instead of just despairing of it.
These recent reports of crimes against women in Haryana are just one more reminder of the contradictory trends in a so-called modernising India. On the one hand, you have technology – like mobile phones or satellite television – that is giving people, including women, the freedom to communicate and to access information even if they are unlettered. On the other hand, there is little that has changed for millions of women in rural India who continue to be burdened by the realities of daily existence without adequate water, sanitation, power, access to health or education. In addition, they have to face the growing conservatism of entrenched anti-women beliefs. And the knowledge that when they are attacked, raped or even killed, they will end up as a crime statistic with no one really caring whether there is any justice.
--
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
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Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre- PMARC has been initiated with the support from group of senior journalists, social activists, academics and intellectuals from Dalit and civil society to advocate and facilitate Dalits issues in the mainstream media. To create proper & adequate space with the Dalit perspective in the mainstream media national/ International on Dalit issues is primary objective of the PMARC.
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