{"id":55281,"date":"2009-07-18T21:05:18","date_gmt":"2009-07-18T21:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/test.tehelka.com\/?p=55281"},"modified":"2009-07-18T21:05:18","modified_gmt":"2009-07-18T21:05:18","slug":"the-evil-that-men-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/the-evil-that-men-do\/","title":{"rendered":"The Evil That Men Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Indian setting, refusal to act on the testimony of the victim of sexual assault in the absence of corroboration as a rule is adding insult to injury. A girl or a woman in the tradition-bound non-permissive society of India would be extremely reluctant even to admit that any incident that is likely to reflect on her chastity had ever occurred\u2026 [A rape victim\u2019s testimony] does not require corroboration from any other evidence, including the evidence of a doctor.<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>\u2014 Supreme Court justices Arijit Pasayat and P Sathasivam, July 2008<\/strong>
\n

\"Assaulted<\/a>
Assaulted<\/strong> Raped Women turned away by the NHRC seek justice<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nFOR DECADES,<\/strong> the Supreme Court of India has cleaved to a rigorous legal standard in cases of rape: the testimony of the victim is enough evidence to launch the prosecution of the accused. Successive judgments over the years have reinforced this position. Thousands of convictions of alleged rapists have been effectively obtained on the basis of victims\u2019 testimonies, with no corroborative evidence sought or offered. Often, the courts have overlooked minor discrepancies in the victims\u2019 accounts, if the main narrative holds up.<\/span>
\nJurists and social commentators in India have long argued that, apart from being a most heinous crime against a woman\u2019s person, her rape doubly curses her in the Indian society by imparting her a stigma that no other crime matches. That is why criminal investigation processes that the police must follow, as well as the judicial procedures prescribed when charges of rape arise, are unambiguous. This is best illustrated in the case of Hindi film actor Shiney Ahuja, who was arrested last month in Mumbai when his maidservant accused him of raping her. Ahuja has been denied bail, and rightly so, for his right to seek justice shall arise at the trial and not before or outside it.<\/span><\/p>\n

What happens when the victims are destitute tribal women with no access to police, judiciary, media?<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But what happens when rape becomes a brutal tool of class oppression in a wider social, political and economic war that men wage against one another, the raped women merely the pawns on their chessboard, the act of rape itself a side story, a cold-blooded strategy to terrorise an entire population into submission? What happens when the victims of rape are some of India\u2019s most destitute tribal women, who live in virtually unreachable forests in subhuman conditions; who have absolutely zero access to the police, the judiciary, the media; whose verdant lands the mighty industrialists covet because they hold in their womb some of India\u2019s richest mineral resources?<\/span>
\nWhat happens when those accused of rape are the hired guns of a dubious state-backed militia that is the frontline in one of the world\u2019s most brutal civil wars? What happens when the Indian State pivots this war against deeply entrenched Maoist insurgents on a take-no-prisoners approach, because unless the Maoists are killed off and millions of tribal people removed from their forests, hills and fields, corporate India won\u2019t be able to claim the bounties of their lands? What happens when it is abundantly clear that accepting the charges of rape from such women would be very dangerous indeed because that step just might begin to unravel this barbaric anti-people militia, bringing an end to its unchecked reign of terror?<\/span>
\n\"\"<\/a>THIS IS<\/strong> the heartrending story of Chhattisgarh, and all the above questions have only one answer: the Indian State cannot afford to honestly investigate these women\u2019s charges of rape and secure them justice. Therefore, it must be forced to do so. In the following pages, readers of TEHELKA will find graphic gut-wrenching testimonies of some tribal women of Chhattisgarh describing how they were brutalised by the men of the Salwa Judum, the tribal militia that the state government sponsored four years ago and has since terrorised tens of thousands of innocent tribal people, burning their houses down, forcing them to abandon their villages where they had lived for generations, to move into squalid government- controlled \u201ccamps\u201d.<\/span>
\nWe traveled deep in the state\u2019s highly forested southern region known as Bastar, and located six women who were raped by the men of the Salwa Judum [literally, peace movement]. We also spoke to one man who saw his sister raped and then found her killed; their father, too, was killed then. The women and the man we met voluntarily gave their testimonies to us, which we have recorded on tape. Most rapes pertain to the period following the setting up of the Salwa Judum in 2005.<\/span>
\nBut the most disturbing part of this story came last year when the Supreme Court asked the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to go to Chhattisgarh and investigate the charges of murder, rape, pillage and arson brought against those men of the Salwa Judum who have been hired and armed by the state police as Special Police Officers (SPOs). The report that an NHRC \u2018fact-finding\u2019 team wrote is deeply troubling in that it blindly toes the police and government line.<\/span><\/p>\n

The NHRC report is deeply troubling as it blindly toes the police version. It absolves the accused, too<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Created by Parliament in 1993 as an autonomous statutory human rights watchdog, the NHRC has long pretended to be the champion of the underdog. Log on to its website today, and you will be justified to feel a gush of relief at the rather self-congratulatory headlines about jobs well done \u2013 \u201cNHRC takes suo moto cognisance of the alleged fake encounter in Uttarakhand and recommends CBI inquiry\u201d; \u201cNHRC takes the railways police IG to task as cops throw pregnant woman from moving train\u201d; \u201cNHRC orders the payment of three lakh rupees monetary relief in a case of death in police custody\u201d.<\/span>
\nAnd yet, the NHRC refused to accept the testimonies of these tribal women of Chhattisgarh that unequivocally detail how SPOs brutally raped them. Instead of making the legally and morally sound recommendation that the state government launch the prosecution of the accused, the NHRC wrote: \u201cDuring the enquiry of some specific allegations, the enquiry team also did not come across any case of rape which could be substantiated.\u201d Shockingly, the NHRC happily absolved the accused too: \u201cThe allegations of rapes levelled against the SPOs and security forces were not substantiated during the enquiry.\u201d<\/span>
\n\"\"<\/a>The most stunning fact, of course, is the NHRC\u2019s rejection of the testimonies of five women from a single village \u2013 Pottenar in Bijapur district \u2013 who deposed before it. Says the report: \u201cThe matter was personally enquired from each of the five girls by a lady IPS officer of the team. During the enquiry, it was observed that there were many inconsistencies in the versions of alleged victims, in the petitions given by them, as well as in the statements of the alleged victims. These inconsistencies were with regard to the number of rape victims, number of SPOs who took them away from the camp, number of SPOs who actually committed the act and their identity and the accompanying circumstances.\u201d<\/span>
\nShockingly, the report goes on to say: \u201cAll the victims stated that none of them reported this matter to their parents or relatives or anyone else in the camp or to the police.\u201d Because the women raped by policemen did not report the rape to the police, their testimonies are suspect?<\/span>
\nSo just when did the NHRC convert itself into a trial court? Just when did it become the job of the NHRC to summarily dismiss, without proper investigation, the charges of rape directly brought forward by the alleged victims of that crime?<\/span><\/p>\n

The NHRC was asked to probe charges also against Salwa Judum. But it spoke mostly to Judum supporters<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The chicanery at the NHRC began as it formed the investigative team. Acting on a lawsuit from activist-lawyer Nandini Sundar against the Salwa Judum, the Supreme Court said: \u201c\u2026We feel that in view of the serious allegations relating to violation of human rights by Naxalites and Salwa Judum and the living conditions in the refugee settlement colonies, it will be appropriate if the NHRC examines\/verifies these allegations… We leave it to the NHRC to appoint an appropriate fact-finding Committee with such members as it deems fit…\u201d<\/span>
\nSo what did the NHRC do? To investigate charges of rape against Special Police Officers who are fully backed by the state police and the government, the NHRC decided to send a 16- member team \u2014 made up of exclusively policemen and women! This included three IPS officers, four Deputy Superintendents of Police, seven inspectors and one constable. Just why would the country\u2019s premier human rights watchdog not include even one well-respected independent social activist in its fact-finding team? (The team head, former DIG Sudhir Chowdhary, refused to talk about this. \u201cI have nothing to add to what is already in the report,\u201d he told TEHELKA.)<\/span>
\nIRONICALLY, THE NHRC<\/strong> investigation in Chhattisgarh was launched at the behest of complainants Nandini Sundar and others, because they claimed that the Salwa Judum was brutalising innocent tribal people of Chhattisgarh. Yet, an overwhelming part of the NHRC report is based on the testimonies of people inside the Salwa Judum camps \u2013 all, therefore, predictably speaking in support of the Salwa Judum. An overwhelming number of documents and conversations relied upon are with the state police \u2013 whose very conduct the team had gone to investigate. The police and\/or other security agencies accompanied the NHRC team\u2019s \u201cindependent\u201d visits to the villages to investigate allegations of police excesses. The petitioners complained that, once, after the NHRC enquiry team had visited a village, \u201cthe Salwa Judum leaders subsequently went there and issued death threats\u2026\u201d So how did the NHRC investigate this complaint? It sought a report from the state\u2019s Director-General of Police!<\/span>
\nIn fact, the entire NHRC report reads like a primary school textbook that pares down everything to a simple black-andwhite narrative, the Salwa Judum overwhelmingly white \u2013 and hardly guilty of any excesses, absolved of all charges of rape and murder \u2013 and the Naxals the blackest of the blacks, the grossest violators of human rights. The 16-member NHRC team toured the region a total of only two weeks. But its report reads like a sociological treatise waxing eloquent on the history of the Naxal movement, offering innumerable sweeping statements without any piece of evidence that they may have collected during their two-week investigations.<\/span>
\nShockingly, the NHRC report says: \u201cFrom the interaction with the villagers it also appears that many of the tribal girls were sexually exploited by the Naxalites.\u201d And yet, the NHRC did not move to document the testimonies of such girls.<\/span>
\nAt least one of the petitioners, former CPIMLA Manish Kunjum, says the NHRC report quotes him wrongly that he \u201cadmitted during interaction with the enquiry team that the policies followed by the Naxalites were responsible for the spontaneous outburst of the tribals\u201d. \u201cI never said anything of this sort,\u201d Kunjam told TEHELKA. \u201cThey are exaggerating my view.\u201d<\/span>
\nAll is not lost, though. On June 16, 2009, some of these victims saw a glimmer of hope as Amrit Kerkatta, a local judicial magistrate in a Dantewada sub-district, began recording the testimonies of six rape victims after receiving their petitions. On July 3, he heard six witnesses, one for each of the victims. The judge has now fixed the next hearing for July 17.<\/span>
\nSudha Bharadwaj, a lawyer at the Bilaspur High Court in Chhattisgarh who is representing these women, told TEHELKA: \u201cThe magistrate has taken the longest possible route to make doubly sure that the testimonies of the women are on record. It is now up to him to prepare the charge-sheet \u2014 which the police should have done in the normal course \u2014 and commit the case to trial.\u201d<\/span>
\nIf indeed the accused are finally tried on the basis of the testimonies of the raped women, then the lawyers representing the victims will certainly press these words of Supreme Court justices Pasayat and Sathasivam:<\/span>
\n\u201cIt is an irony that while we are celebrating woman\u2019s rights in all spheres, we show little or no concern for her honour. It is a sad reflection on the attitude of indifference of society towards the violation of human dignity of the victims of sex crimes. The socio-economic status, religion, race, caste or creed of the accused or the victim are irrelevant considerations in the sentencing policy. Protection of society and deterring the criminal are the avowed objects of law and that is required to be achieved by imposing appropriate sentence.<\/span>
\n\u201cWe must remember that a rapist not only violates the victim\u2019s privacy and personal integrity but inevitably causes serious psychological as well as physical harm. Rape is not merely a physical assault \u2014 it is often destructive of the whole personality of the victim. A murderer destroys the body of his victim, a rapist degrades the very soul of the helpless female.<\/span>
\n\u201cA prosecutrix of a sex offence cannot be put on par with an accomplice. She is in fact a victim of the crime… What is necessary is that the court must be conscious of the fact that it is dealing with the evidence of a person who is interested in the outcome of the charge levelled by her.\u201d<\/span>
\najit@tehelka.comThe<\/span>Rape\u00a0<\/strong>testimonies<\/span>
\n‘For weeks after they raped us the Salwa Judum men freely roamed our camp while we hid ourselves\u2019<\/strong><\/span>
\n

\"KUMBLI\"<\/a>
1. KUMBLI A<\/strong>
AGE<\/strong>
Around 20 years old, married with daughter
DISTRICT<\/strong>
Bijapur
ACCUSES<\/strong>
Munna Telga and Dinesh Kunjam<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nTHE FOLLOWING<\/strong> is the account of my rape that I gave the questioners from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC):<\/span>
\nI was raped along with probably 10 other girls. At the time, we were all residents of the Salwa Judum camp, next to the police station. Our rapists were SPOs who lived at the police station. Some lived even inside our camp. The distance between the police station and the camp was about 10-15 metres.<\/span>
\nOne night, some SPOs came to our houses in the camp at dinnertime and asked us girls to come out with them. They had guns. We didn\u2019t go. The men were in full uniform at that time.<\/span>
\nLater, at about 10pm, when we had just gone to sleep after dinner, a number of SPOs entered the camp again and woke us up at our houses. Now they were wearing only half pants and vests, which is the regular SPO gear at nights.<\/span>
\n\u201cCome with us,\u201d they said. \u201cWe have to question you.\u201d I was home sleeping with my father, mother and sister. Outside, I saw they had collected the other girls, too. My father came out of the hut and asked them, \u201cWhere are you taking her at night?\u201d My mother said: \u201cWhy are you taking these girls? We will follow you.\u201d<\/span>
\nThe SPOs said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry. We won\u2019t do anything to the girls. But if you follow us, we will kill you.\u201d<\/span>
\nThe SPOs then took us to the forests just outside the camp. Some marched ahead and some behind us. The girls cowered in the middle. It was a dark night and we walked some distance. All the girls started crying. We all thought they were going to kill us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another man caught me. I cried, \u2018please\u00a0Let me go.\u2019 for the second time that\u00a0Night, i was disrobed. He, too, raped me<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We kept asking the SPOs, \u201cWhere are you taking us at night? What have we done?\u201d Some boys from our camp were following us. The SPOs caned them and said, \u201cGo back. The girls will come back in a while.\u201d<\/span>
\nThere, by the roadside, they raped all of us girls, next to each other.<\/span>
\nA man disrobed me. I begged him: \u201cPlease don\u2019t do this. You aren\u2019t my husband or anything.\u201d But he raped me. He was totally drunk.<\/span>
\nI could hear the other girls wailing, \u201cOh, mother\u2026\u201d I also screamed: \u201cOh God! He is killing me.\u201d After this man raped me, he said: \u201cGo back now. Don\u2019t even dare tell anyone that I have raped you.\u201d I somehow wore my clothes and started running back to the camp.<\/span>
\nBut another man caught me and asked: \u201cWhere are you off to?\u201d I cried: \u201cI have fever. Please let me go.\u201d<\/span>
\nHe held me by the hand. I couldn\u2019t free myself. He took me back to the roadside. For the second time, I was disrobed. He, too, raped me.<\/span>
\nThen all the men were done with all us girls. The girls got together and somehow ran back home. The men, too, returned to their rooms. I wept before my parents. I told them that the SPOs beat us up. I was too ashamed to tell them that I had been raped.<\/span>
\nBut the next day, our village people asked us if we were raped the previous night. We had to admit that we indeed were. All the rape victims were all unmarried then. The villagers didn\u2019t do anything.<\/span>
\nI bled a lot at being raped. For three months, I was bedridden. I got my periods three months after the rape. For three months I had fever. For three months I bled.<\/span>
\nI know the men who raped me. One is named Munna. His caste name is Telga. The other man is named Dinesh Kunjam. I had known them long, though I had never talked to either of them.<\/span>
\nAfter these men raped us girls, they freely moved around the camp for weeks. We were so ashamed of what had happened that we stopped stepping out of our homes. I stayed at the camp another month, then our family moved back to the village.<\/span>
\nIn June 2008, I deposed before the NHRC. I was pregnant at the time. I now have a five-month-old daughter.<\/span>
\nI was taken from my village to the Dantewada town to depose. There were two people in the room. One asked me questions and wrote my answers. The other was the interpreter. Both were men. They wore shirts and full pants.<\/span>
\nThey asked me, \u201cWhat did the Salwa Judum men do to you after they abducted you?\u201d I told them that the Salwa Judum men raped me. I told those two NHRC men that I had begged the Salwa Judum men not to rape me.<\/span>
\nTHERE WERE<\/strong> five of us who had gone to depose before the NHRC. All of us were rape victims. Inside the room, there was one more girl with me from my village.<\/span>
\nThey asked us questions together. They asked me if I knew who had raped me. I said, \u201cYes! It was the men from Salwa Judum.\u201d<\/span>
\nI gave them the names of my rapists. They asked why I didn\u2019t go to the police. I told them that the Salwa Judum men had told me that if I went to the police, they would kill me.<\/span>
\nHadn\u2019t our rapists gone back to the police station right after raping us? The other girl was quiet as I gave my testimony.<\/span>
\nDid the NHRC give me any documents? No.<\/span>
\nDid they give me a copy of my testimony? No.<\/span>
\nI don\u2019t know what\u2019s an affidavit. Nobody told me that I have a right to get a copy of my testimony, my affidavit. They took my thumb impression on some papers. That\u2019s all. I got nothing from them.<\/span>
\nA year after my rape I was married off. I now live with my mother-in-law and husband.<\/span>
\nI don\u2019t have faith in the NHRC anymore.<\/span>
\nI want my rapists dead.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n‘All four raped me repeatedly. They kept saying, \u201cDon\u2019t worry. I will marry you later’<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n

\"MADHAVI\"<\/a>
2. MADHAVI B<\/strong>
AGE<\/strong>
Possibly a minor when raped
DISTRICT<\/strong>
Dantewada
ACCUSES<\/strong>
Veko Soma of Korpar village, Odiya Rajesh of Polempalli village, Suyid Idma of Palem village<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nMY PARENTS<\/strong> died six years ago of illnesses. I live with my late brother\u2019s widow. On the day I was raped about three years ago, I had gone with another girl to the woods to pick mahua flowers. At noon, several men in uniforms and carrying guns attacked us. They were SPOs who lived in nearby villages and often passed by.<\/span>
\nFour men held me down. I know three by name. They dragged me to a field and disrobed me. As each raped me, the other three held me down. This lasted probably two hours. All four raped me repeatedly. They kept saying, \u201cDon\u2019t worry. I will marry you later.\u201d I wept all the while. I begged them not to pin me down so brutally as it hurt my limbs. They threatened they would kill me if I told anyone of being raped. Once done, they abandoned me there. My clothes lay torn at some distance.<\/span>
\nA woman helped me up. Another fetched me her wrap around. They brought me back to my house. The sun had set by now. I told my sister-in-law I had been raped. She washed me with warm water and gave me a herbal drink. I developed an infection and bled for days. My limbs ached for weeks.<\/span>
\nI was too scared to tell anyone else. My sister-in-law informed her family and the sarpanch, Sudi Nanda. I gave him the names of three of my rapists. He later told me he went to the police station and reported my rape. I trust the sarpanch still. But the police never came to talk to me or investigate. I didn\u2019t go to the police station myself. A few journalists came and interviewed me, but I never heard anything come of it. I don\u2019t know of any court case in the Supreme Court. I don\u2019t know the NHRC.<\/span>
\nI have come across my rapists several times at the weekly market. They avoid me and I avoid them. If I ever look at them, they melt away in the crowd. Do I want my rapists punished? If you can help me, then please send them to jail.<\/span>
\nWhy didn\u2019t I go to the police? [Goes quiet]<\/span>
\n‘They locked me in a room in the police station. Some time later, a man I know came in. He raped me’<\/strong><\/span>
\n
\"MADKAM\"<\/a>
3. MADKAM I<\/strong>
AGE<\/strong>
Possibly between 18-20 years old
DISTRICT<\/strong>
Dantewada
ACCUSES<\/strong>
Tudka, Suresh, Arpat, Govind, and seven others<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nIN MARCH 2008,<\/strong> the Salwa Judum burnt down my village, including my house. My father asked me to go to our relatives\u2019 in another village. As I was about to get into a bus at Konta [150km south of Dantewada], a man named Dinesh, whom I knew to be with the Salwa Judum and who was the sarpanch of a village named\u00a0<\/span>Gorka, approached me with another man. He asked me: \u201cWhere are you headed?\u201d At that time, my aunt \u2013 my mother\u2019s sister-in-law \u2013 was passing by. She told them she would take me to her house. My aunt took me to her tenement in the Salwa Judum camp at Konta.<\/span>
\nThe next morning, at 7.30am, about 10 SPOs in uniform carrying guns, landed at my aunt\u2019s hut. They said Dinesh had sent them. I knew three of them. They were SPOs from a nearby village. Their names are Suresh, Arpat and Govind. I had often seen them at the weekly market. They said the\u00a0thanedaar<\/em>\u00a0[police station chief] at Konta had summoned me. I asked my aunt to come with me but she backed out.<\/span>
\nAt the police station, the SPOs told the\u00a0thanedaar<\/em>\u00a0that they had caught me with the Naxals. Shortly, my aunt landed up. Three people interrogated me separately through the day in my aunt\u2019s presence. One of them, whom I recognise by face but can\u2019t name, said to me, \u201cYou will be jailed, or even killed.\u201d I was scared. I pleaded to be allowed to go. In the afternoon, they said I could go. But just as I left with my aunt, I ran into some SPOs who told my aunt to go away and forcibly brought me back to the police station.<\/span>
\nThey took me to a bare room about 10ft by 7ft in size, blindfolded me with a towel, and locked it from outside. It had two windows and both were shut.<\/span>
\nSome time later, a man came in. He took off my blindfold. I recognised him, having seen him often at the weekly market. I don\u2019t know his formal name, but he is nicknamed Tudka and is an SPO in Konta. He asked me, \u201cHow did you get here?\u201d I said: \u201cThey brought me here.\u201d Then he raped me. I got very angry. I swore at him. I tried to push him. But he held me and continued to rape me. Once he was done, he blindfolded me again and left the room, locking it from outside.<\/span>
\nI lost all sense of time. Later, two men came in. I begged them, \u201cShow me the way out.\u201d They let me out. I ran back to my aunt\u2019s place at the Salwa Judum camp. After that, every day the SPOs came to check on me. One said, \u201cWe will kill you if you try to escape.\u201d<\/span>
\nTen days later, I escaped the camp and came to the house of another aunt in a far-off village. She married me off to her son to save me further trouble. But a week later, seven SPOs with guns landed up in my husband\u2019s village. Terrified, I hid myself. The villagers later told me that Tudka, my rapist, had been among them.<\/span>
\nThe SPOs demanded money from the villagers, citing a tradition in which the groom\u2019s family pays the bride\u2019s. The SPOs claimed they hailed from my village and that made them my family. At gunpoint, they stole three chicken, three goats, and a cow, as well as Rs 3,500.<\/span>
\nThey came back to my husband\u2019s village several times afterwards, too. I fear that they will keep returning there. So I prefer to stay in hiding all the time.<\/span>
\n‘The men caught me and beat me up. One man then raped me. The others were throwing stuff out’<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n
\"MADKAM\"<\/a>
4. MIDIAM I<\/strong>
AGE<\/strong>
Married with daughter
DISTRICT<\/strong>
Dantewada
ACCUSES<\/strong>
SPO Joga of Seesod village<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nI HAD BEEN<\/strong> married only a month when the Salwa Judum men raped me. This was two years ago. My husband was home. It was about 9am. My mother-inlaw was still asleep.<\/span>
\nI was winnowing rice just outside my house, and that is when I saw a force of uniformed men approaching our house. They were in green fatigues and carrying guns.I ran to my mother-inlaw and shook her awake.<\/span>
\nMy husband was inside eating breakfast. The SPOs had once before caught my husband, so I told him to run away to escape the force.<\/span>
\nThe uniformed men came and caught me and started beating me up. One of them asked me for the house keys.<\/span>
\nI opened the house for them. They tore up the sack which held the rice. One man held me. He then took me inside the house. The other men began throwing stuff out of the house.<\/span>
\nOne man then raped me. He is known as Joga of a village named Seesod. I can identify him. My mother-inlaw had run away by now. They ransacked the house and took my mother-in-law\u2019s money. My husband returned at night. I told him I had been raped. We did not go to the police. The next day my mother-in-law took me to the hospital at Dornapal.<\/span>
\nI told the doctor I had been raped and I was in terrible pain. I don\u2019t know what the doctor said. I don\u2019t know what my mother-in-law paid him as fees.<\/span>
\n‘I told everyone in the village about my rape. The sarpanch said, \u201cWe are all scared. What can we do?’<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n
\"MADKAM\"<\/a>
5. MADKAM S<\/strong>
AGE<\/strong>
Possibly a minor when raped three years ago
DISTRICT<\/strong>
Dantewada
ACCUSES<\/strong>
Raju of Chintanaar village, Vijay (village unknown)<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nI AM THE<\/strong> eldest of three brothers and two sisters. Our father passed away three years ago. One day shortly after that, I was doing chores at the door of my house when someone grabbed my hair violently and dragged me inside my house. I saw there were four or more men. I know at least two of them, Raju of Chintanaar village and Vijay, who was once a construction labourer in my village. I had worked with both earlier and I know for sure that they had joined the Salwa Judum.<\/span>
\nThey were in their uniforms and had guns. I screamed for my mother but one of them held her outside. There was no one else at home, as my brothers had gone to the forests and my sister was at school. One of the men asked me, \u201cAre you a Naxal?\u201d I said no. He said they would kill me.<\/span>
\nThen they raped me, all four of them. I cried all the while. Then they left.<\/span>
\nThree days later, a force of uniformed men returned. Raju and Vijay were not among them. They beat me up badly. They beat up other people in the village. They threatened us saying we should join Salwa Judum or else… As they beat us up, they said, \u201cCome to Dornapal [Salwa Judum camp]. We will enroll you as SPOs.\u201d But no one from our village went.<\/span>
\nWhy didn\u2019t I go to the police? I was scared they would catch me if I did. I told everyone in the village about my rape, including the sarpanch. But he said, \u201cWe are all scared. What can we do?\u201d<\/span>
\nOne year after he raped me, I ran into Raju while on the way to the hospital. Once I came across Vijay too. On both occasions, they turned their heads away when they saw me.<\/span>
\nThree other women were raped in my village. I have never heard of the Supreme Court. I don\u2019t know if it ordered any investigations into the rapes of women like me. I don\u2019t know what is NHRC. I don\u2019t know if it carried out any investigations. I do know that no police report was ever filed about my rape.<\/span>
\nI want the police to catch my rapists. I don\u2019t know if anyone will marry me.<\/span>
\n‘They tore up my clothes, gagged me and raped me. I fainted. I was bleeding as my mother picked me up’<\/strong><\/span>
\n
\"SODI\"<\/a>
6. SODI<\/strong>
AGE<\/strong>
A minor when raped
DISTRICT<\/strong>
Dantewada
ACCUSES<\/strong>
Salwa Judum SPOs<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nAT ABOUT 3PM<\/strong> one day two years ago, I was at our granary with my parents. My mother and I were winnowing the rice from its husk. My father was making ropes. Suddenly, a group of about 10 uniformed men were upon us, guns on their shoulders, sticks in their hands. Two caught me by my arm. I recognised none. My father tried to rush to me, but they held him back and beat him so badly that they drew blood from all over him.<\/span>
\nMy father screamed, \u201cWhat are you doing to my daughter?\u201d My mother, too, began to wail. They beat her black and blue with sticks and took her away somewhere. Then they raped me. Four people raped me. I don\u2019t know them. They had masked their faces. They took my father to our house, which was about 100 feet away. Thankfully, my father didn\u2019t witness my rape.<\/span>
\nI was wearing a wraparound as my lower garment, a towel on my head, and a red blouse. They tore up my clothes, gagged my mouth with a black cloth, and tied another cloth around it. I couldn\u2019t see my mother. They raped me for a long time, all of them. I was crying. Then the men left and my mother came in and picked me up. I had fainted. I was bleeding heavily. My mother took me home and gave me clothes to wear because my clothes were all torn.<\/span>
\nWe heard that they\u2019d taken my father to the house of his older brother. There they tied up both men. Later, other villagers went and set them free. The villagers told my father he should have screamed when the men attacked.<\/span>
\nHow do I know they were Salwa Judum and not Naxals? I know they were from the Salwa Judum because eight days earlier they had come to our village and asked us to join the Judum. Well, four days later they came back. This time, they were fully unmasked. In fact, they kept coming back to the village. Every time they did, I would run and hide.<\/span>
\nIn fact, I had seen other Salwa Judum members dressed exactly like them at Dornapal. They were clearly not Naxals. Naxals come to our village sometimes. But they have never raped anyone.<\/span>
\nThe morning after I was raped, my father, my mother and I went to a hospital 10km away. No one came with us. My lower abdomen was in terrible pain from the forced penetrative sex.<\/span>
\nI saw a private doctor who runs a two-room clinic. He is a Bengali. I told him I had been raped. He asked me, \u201cWhy did you keep quiet during the rape?\u201d I told him that I couldn\u2019t speak because I was gagged.<\/span>
\nThe doctor gave me some pills and syrup. We paid him Rs 1,000. He didn\u2019t tell me that I should go to the police. I\u2019ve no idea if he is bound by law to report rape to the police. I don\u2019t remember his name but I remember him. He said I should drink lots of warm water and stop eating tomatoes and sour foodstuff. It\u2019s two years since I was raped but I still get terrible stomach aches during menstruation.<\/span>
\nThe doctor also gave us ointments to heal my father\u2019s wounds from all the beating. But my father\u2019s wounds were really bad. His skin had come off his back and arms. Blood had clotted all over. My father died of his wounds in less than two weeks.<\/span>
\nI never went to the police. I was scared they would catch me again. I get very angry every time I think of my rapists and the killers of my father. I think of them every day. I want them in jail. I want them punished.<\/span>
\nI don\u2019t know what the NHRC is. I have never met anyone from the NHRC.<\/span>
\n‘We found my sister\u2019s body after 10 days. She had been raped, stabbed and shot in the mouth’<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n
\"GANTAL\"<\/a>
7. GANTAL<\/strong>
AGE<\/strong>
Possibly between 18-20 years old
DISTRICT<\/strong>
Bijapur
ACCUSES<\/strong>
Salwa Judum SPOs of raping and killing his sister, and killing his father<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nSALWA JUDUM<\/strong> men raped my sister on December 29, 2006. Then, they stabbed her, put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. At the same time, they also killed my father by first beating and then shooting him. At that time, I was working in Andhra Pradesh as a movie theater attendant and visiting home.<\/span>
\nOn that day, a number of SPOs surrounded our village. They fired upon a villager named Motiram near the village pond. The bullet hit his arm. He ran back to the village. The SPOs began burning down the village. Almost 35 houses were burned down. They even burnt the cowsheds and the haystacks.<\/span>
\nI had only recently built a new house at a cost of Rs 50,000. All our belongings were burnt to ashes. They caught my father, Gantal Kanhaiya, and began beating him mercilessly. They brought him inside my grandmother\u2019s hut near our house. I had, meanwhile, hid myself in the housetop granary. From there I saw them thrash my father repeatedly. My father lost consciousness and died later.<\/span>
\nThe SPOs dragged my 20-year-old sister, Gantal Sridevi, out of her room and began beating her too. They then took her inside my uncle\u2019s room. She was crying and screaming. When my mother pleaded with them to let my sister go, a man put a gun in my mother\u2019s mouth and threatened to kill her. They even beat up my grandmother. They beat my wife and snatched her mangalsutra. They stole all our valuables, including money.<\/span>
\nThe SPOs dragged my sister near the forest, to a spot close to the pond and raped her. We found her body after 10 days. She had been stabbed and was shot in her mouth.<\/span>
\nI didn\u2019t go to the police or register an FIR because I was scared. We cremated my sister. That day four people were killed, including Motilal, the man who had been shot first of all. The local priest, Ramaya, was also shot dead when he was trying to flee his house, which they set on fire. I didn\u2019t approach the Supreme Court.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tribal women claiming rape by Salwa Judum men in Chhattisgarh put a question mark on the NHRC, which rejected their testimonies. Photographs by Shailendra Pandey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":55306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56],"tags":[8626,8769,8770,1706,1708,8771,822,8772,8773,8774,8775,1406,340,8776,8766,8750,8777,8778,6204,8779,8780,8781],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55281"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}