[AISF] Report of police brutality and sexual violence in Godhra

Dear All,

Meeraben Rafibhai Malek (associated with All India Secular Forum through her organisation Centre for Development) and Prasad Chacko visited Godhra and have given this fact finding report after meeting the victims. This is for your perusal

Yours sincerely,

Irfan



Report of our visit to meet the victims of police brutality and sexual violence in Godhra

We came to know about the inhuman atrocities perpetrated on the women of Hathila and Geni plots (near Urdu School) of Godhra on the midnight of 19th -20th of December, almost 12 days later. The media had not reported this ghastly attack at all. We visited Hathila plot on the 2nd of January and talked to the women who were brutally assaulted and sexually abused during the entire episode and later on in custody. The purpose was to meet the victims of this police atrocity, be in solidarity with the victims in their trauma, and also to ascertain and record the details of this atrocity.



The incident



The police seemed to have been pursuing an accused alleged of cow-slaughter. Due to some reason the accused managed to escape from another residential area close to Hathila plot. Following this incident the police ‘raided’ the Hathila plot in the middle of the night around 1.00 a.m. (on the 20th of December, 2009). The police forcibly entered a number of houses and started beating up the innocent women. They verbally and physically assaulted the defenceless women in their houses and after terrorizing the community for over an hour, 8 women were dragged away. The women were illegally detained on false and frivolous charges and pushed into the police vehicles, in blatant violation of the guideline that women cannot be arrested and taken into custody without the presence of women constables. And this happened well past midnight.



We would not like to go into like the frivolous charges levelled against the women, nor the wanton destruction that the police party had engaged in before taking the women away. We would like to focus on the inhuman battering and the sexual abuse the women were subjected to, which is a very serious violation of human rights and the law by the police; and raises very serious questions regarding the impunity with which police engage in such brutal violations.



Police atrocities and sexual violence



Sub Inspector A.V.Parmar, constables Prabhatsinh and Suresh from Godhra Sector B led this criminal group of policemen, and the women have identified them; they would be able to identify the remaining policemen in person if and when presented before them. The police personnel who had forced themselves into the houses had engaged in extremely sexist abuses and crass acts like opening their pants and displaying their private parts. These policemen, particularly PSI Parmar and the constables named above, crossed all limits; they grabbed and applied brutal pressure on the breasts, buttocks and the private parts of the women, while verbally and physically assaulting them. As the women resisted this abuse, they were brutally beaten up with lathis and kicked dangerously in the stomach and other parts of the body. The police forced themselves into the house of a widow who was still in the iddat and misbehaved with her despite pleas of all those present there. She was also abused and manhandled, but the police stopped short of arresting her and taking her away with the other women, (perhaps fearing serious consequences). Even a young woman who was to get married the next day was beaten up badly and was injured on her toes, which was bleeding profusely. Two women who were running away to protect themselves were pursued and battered by these police personnel and later loaded into their vehicles. A young mother who was nursing her 15 day old child also was brutally beaten while still holding the baby. All the women also disclosed that the sexual abuse and violence continued in the vehicle and in the police station as they reached there.



All the while they kept shouting obnoxious expletives, threatening to rape and kill them, and that nothing would happen to the policemen whatever they do. Even after 14 days the clot and the painful injury marks are still visible all over their bodies. All the injury marks which were visible in the photographs shown by them were verified in person and in private by the women who were in this fact finding team. We have not attached photographs so that their privacy could be respected.



The young children who had witnessed this violence are still in a state of shock and many of them, the women victims and their family members find it difficult to sleep at night.



The Magisterial Inquiry



Our experience pertaining to action taken in the event of police brutalities is generally negative. The records are invariably manipulated and the victims are terrorized into denying any such brutality when produced before the magistrate. The police allegedly showed the arrest only at around 5.30 p.m. on the 20th although the women were in detention from the wee hours of the morning (around 3.00 a.m.). However when the women were finally produced before the magistrate (who happens to be a woman), she listened to the victims, examined their injuries and ordered the police to take them right away to the civil hospital. Even this, the police delayed and also forced the medical staff to get the medical examination done in their presence and by male staff.



The sensitive observations made by the magistrate are a silver lining in an otherwise brutal inhuman atrocity case. This has further enabled the Chief Judicial Magistrate to order an inquiry into this atrocity under Section 202 of Cr.PC. Hopefully this prima facie case made out against the police would help the victims in getting justice.



What next?



The legal process will take its course, and there are civil society organizations such as Citizens for Justice and Peace who have taken up the matter. But our concern still remains. Violence against women has been on the rise in Gujarat; and the kind of brutality that has been perpetrated only shows the dangerous and violent mindset that has been setting in particularly after the Gujarat Carnage in 2002. We witnessed at that time an unprecedented orgy of sexual violence in the carnage by the murderous mobs as well as the police. But nothing much could be done about it due to lack of complaints and evidence. Now we are witnessing more and more of such brutal violence both by criminals and the police with impunity. And when such brutalities are perpetrated by the police we know that we are at the edge of a precipice.



We have to see this as a crisis situation and respond with the urgency it deserves. There is a need for us belonging to human rights and women’s rights organizations to overtly be with the victims of such violence; to take strong positions and express this in strongest and loudest ways possible. While the legal process should also be strengthened it is equally important that we respond socially and politically to eliminate this mindless violence. We have to challenge our collective conscience and commit to prevent and end this violence against women. Can we come together to do something before it is too late?



Meera Rafi Malek



Prasad Chacko