Fast-tracking rape trials? Not in Bastar

There could not be a worse national shame this New Year than the National Human Rights Commission’s (NHRC) interim report indicting the Chhattisgarh police for allegedly raping and sexually and physically assaulting 16 Adivasi girls and women in the Bastar region. “Prima-facie, human rights of the victims has been grossly violated by the security personnel of the Government of Chhattisgarh for which the state government is vicariously liable”, noted the report. The strongly worded report should have jolted the National conscience. But has it?

The NHRC in its January 7 press release issued notice to the Chhattisgarh government asking “why it should not recommend interim monetary relief of Rs.37 lakh” to the victims. But the NHRC did not initiate action against the erring security personnel. More pertinently, why should the senior officers who ordered such operations be spared, after sitting over the investigation for over a year? Such ‘protection’ of senior officers who are directly responsible puts a question mark on the constitutional morality practised by governments.

The NHRC investigated three sets of rape and sexual assault of women from three different sets of villages in Bijapur, Sukma and Dantewada districts. The first assault was reported from five villages of Pegdapalli, Chinnagellur, Peddagelur, Gundam and Burgicheru where 40 women were assaulted and two raped, including a minor girl, when the forces entered the villages for a combing operation between October 19 and 24, 2015. The crimes came to light when members of the Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS), a national network of women’s rights groups, visited Bijapur where they came to hear of large scale sexual assault and violence from women returning from the weekly market in Basaguda. The WSS members recorded the victims’ statements, videographed their testimony, and brought the evidence before District Collector, Yashwant Kumar (now transferred out of the district), and the current Superintendent of Police, K L Dhruv.

With WSS’ support, the women testified before the Collector and the SP. For the first time in the state, an FIR under Sections 376(2) (rape by security personnel) was filed. Other sections included 395(punishment for dacoity), 354B (assault on a woman with the intent to outrage her modesty), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 294 (punishment for obscene acts) of the Indian Penal Code as well as Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (which provides for rigorous imprisonment of not less than 10 years). The Collector took prompt action, putting an investigation team in place — alas, headed by the Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Anti-Naxal, IPS IK Eleseliya, under whose command the operations were undertaken. For obvious reasons, the investigation is still dragging its feet. Eleseliya has since then been promoted as SP of nearby Sukma. After taking suo-moto cognisance of the Indian Express report on state excesses published on November 2, the NHRC team visited the state in April 2016 . The WSS also lodged a formal complaint with the NHRC on December 22, 2015, urging the Commission to act as the police probe was not moving forward.

Before the NHRC probe could begin, it had to accommodate another set of cases of sexual assault which were reported from Sukma, Bijapur and Dantewada districts from January 11 to 14, 2016, during combing operations. ‘Mission 2016’ of the Bastar Police was well underway. At Kunna village in Sukma district, six women were sexually assaulted. Thirteen women from village Bellam Lendra (Nendra) in Basaguda Thana, Bijapur district, and some others from Chhote Gadam, district Dantewada, also accused the security personnel of gang rape. In all 34 victims — all women and all Adivasi — filed FIRs. Filing these FIRs was no less strenuous, tiresome and risky for both the women and their civil society supporters.

The WSS reports from these villages clearly reflect a pattern which local journalists, lawyers and Adivasi leaders are now familiar with. Security forces with “intelligence inputs” of Maoist movement will reach the villages late into the evenings or early in the mornings for ‘area domination’ or ‘combing operations’. When villagers hear the approaching security forces, usually a combined force of Chhattisgarh police and central paramilitary forces, men including young boys, for fear of wanton arrest, escape into the forest, leaving behind women, children and the elderly to tend to their home and meagre belongings and cattle. These operations continue for a couple of days to a week, during which, security personnel forcibly occupy homes, loot belongings, mostly stored grains — destroy them by burning it, if not eat them, take away chicken, and even abuse women and young girls going about their chores. In places like Kunna, women narrated how security forces would squeeze their breast to confirm if they are lactating mothers. Security forces believe that women Maoist cadres are not allowed to have children. Since most villagers living in distant villages are suspect, the police would confirm whether the women passing by the forest during their searches were Maoists or not by the demeaning act of squeezing their breasts for milk to confirm they were lactating.

The NHRC had to gather statements from about 34 women complainants in FIRs filed in Bijapur and Sukma districts for crimes committed between October and January. Due to paucity of time, inability of the women to reach for deposition as well as security concerns, the NHRC could record statements of only 16 women. All of them confirmed assault of serious nature, which was prima facie evidence of the crime. The NHRC press release said statements of the remaining 18 women would be recorded within a month. Recording their statements would be a huge challenge given the atmosphere of terror projected by the police. But if they testify to rape, the number of women subjected to sexual assault would rise to a shameful figure of 34.

The NHRC’s interim report has vindicated what lawyers, Adivasi leaders, academicians, researchers and journalists have tried to report for which they were harassed, attacked, charged with cases, and driven out of Bastar, branding them Maoists and Maoist sympathisers. The government must restore the faith of the people and take action against erring police officers including the senior officials posted in Bastar like the Inspector General of Police. It is embarrassing enough for any state government to be summoned by the National Human Rights Commission. When asked to present its defence in November last year, both — the Chhattisgarh chief secretary Vivek Dand and the IG Bastar, SRP Kalluri, shamelessly ducked. The IG, for his perceived worth of being bold and brazen in his ‘fight against the Naxals, has certainly brought ignominy to the Chhattisgarh government. If this is the ‘success’ of Mission 2016, I shudder to think what is in store in Mission 2017.

The author is an award-winning independent journalist reporting on Bastar