According to a recent report by the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) – an Indian human rights organisation – police officers were charged in 10 cases of rape in New Delhi between 1989-1993. They reported that the courts tended to ignore the victim’s vulnerability, and often subject the victim to so much emotional strain that the case is dropped completely.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
As in other countries throughout the world, rape is extremely common in India. Hardly a day passes without a case of rape being reported in the newspapers.
Women belonging to low castes, and tribal women are especially at risk. What is particularly worrying about rape in India is the lack of seriousness with which the crime is often treated, and the degrading treatment to which alleged rape victims are often subjected by law courts and by their own communities. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that rape laws are inadequate and definitions so narrow that prosecution is made difficult. In a notorious case from Rajasthan, alleged gang-rapers were acquitted on account of their high-caste and middle-agedness.
A case study which has received a great deal of media attention recently regarding a woman social activist from Rajasthan powerfully illustrates the difficulties of women who have been raped, and gives an insight into the status of women in India.
43 year-old Bhanwari Devi, a backward-caste voluntary worker from Bhateri village in Rajasthan filed a complaint with the police in 1992 alleging that she had been gang-raped. **She had allegedly been raped on September 22, 1992, by members of a rich, high-caste family, whom she had attempted to report for organising a child marriage as part of her job in the state sponsored Rajasthan’s Women’s Development Project. **
Following its transference from the local police to the state Criminal Investigations Department, and then under pressure from women’s groups, to the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI), the district and sessions court in Jaipur dismissed her case and acquitted all five accused: Ram Sukh Gujjar, Ram Karan Gujjar, Gyarsa Gujjar, Badri Gujjar, and Shravan Sharma. The judgement emphasised that her First Information Report (FIR) was not immediately filed and that she did not tell anyone else in the village about her ordeal.
Khalsa Human Rights does not consider that this would be a surprising reaction to gang-rape and the emotional trauma and stigma attached to it. Based on an examination of available press reports, Khalsa Human Rights remains very concerned about the outco me of this case and the poor treatment which has been accorded to Ms. Bhanwari Devi.
Custodial Rape Article 7 ICCPR: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.Article 10(1) ICCPR: All persons deprived of their shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.\
Custodial rape is a particularly important category of rape since it represents a flagrant abuse of the authority of the Indian government, the ver y same institution which is bound to promote and protect the rights of women. The degree to which government authorities are willing to ensure that the perpetrators of this crime are brought to justice is likely to be a good indication of the esteem in which women’s rights are held in the society as a whole.
Hundreds of cases of police rape have been reported in India in recent years, but convictions of police officers for raping women in their custody remain rare. Few cases of custodial rape reach the trial stage. In 1990 five police officers in West Bengal were suspended for allegedly raping Kankuli Santra in Singur police station. The police at first tried to avoid responsibility by claiming that she was mentally ill. Then they said that she was a bad woman. Public protests eventually forced charges to be brought against two of the officers, but the case was dismissed for lack of evidence.
According to a recent report by the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) – an Indian human rights organisation – police officers were charged in 10 cases of rape in New Delhi between 1989-1993. They reported that the courts tended to ignore the victim’s vulnerability, and often subject the victim to so much emotional strain that the case is dropped completely.
Of the ten cases it is reported that six of the women wanted to withdraw the charges in order to end their ordeal; two of the women did not show up to complete proceedings; one of the remaining cases was still in progress, with all four def endants on bail. In the only remaining case, there was a failure to produce any of the accused in court. In another case which has been brought to the attention of Khalsa Human Rights, , the wife of Kanwar Singh Dhami, a well-known advocate of an independent Sikh homeland (Khalistan) in Punjab, was arrested in Himachal Predesh in 1993, following a seditious speech given by her husband at the Anandpur Sahib Gurdwara (Sikh Temple). **Kanwar Singh Dhami claimed that he and his wife were tortured in front of each other by Punjab police during their detention. **
Kuldip Kaur alleged that she had been raped by the police during her detention, and that she had to have an abortion on April 11, 1994, because of the pain that she was suffering.
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