By: Aasef Chauhdry
According to the Wikipedia rape is the fourth most common crime against Indian women. According to the National Crime Record Bureau 2013 annual report, 24,923 rape cases were reported across India in 2012. Out of these, 24,470 were committed by someone known to the victim (98% of the cases). Imagine what would be the state of affair now, when from every nook and corner of India, voice about rape cases is heard every now and then. The National Crime Records Bureau of India suggests a reported rape rate of 2 per 100,000 people, much lower than reported rape incidence rate statistics for many nations tracked by the United Nations. However, the fact is otherwise, as the majority of rape cases in India, as elsewhere in the world, are never reported. According to 2012 statistics, New Delhi has the highest raw number of rape reports among Indian cities, while Jabalpur has the highest per capita rate of rape reports. Several rape cases in India received widespread media attention and triggered protests since 2012. This led the Government of India to reform its penal code for crimes of rape and sexual assault.
The alarming issue is the penetration of sexually perverted elements in the armed forces’ files and ranks specifically and civil society generally. It has created a lot of panic among the peaceful citizens who are feeling totally insecure. The raping the women publicly, at parks, while travelling in buses, in army units has become a common practice since last one decade. Even the peaceful members of Indian society and especially youth have started raising their voice against this inhumanity. The JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar, few weeks back, while talking about the BJP’s youth wing filing a police complaint over his alleged defiance of bail conditions by making “anti-national” statements, said, “No matter how much you try to stop us, we will speak up against human rights violations. We will raise our voice against AFSPA. While we have a lot of respect for our soldiers, we will still talk about the fact that in Kashmir women are raped by security personnel”.
The Indian authorities encouraged their troops in Kashmir and hardly took any action against the filthy monsters who were involved in the raping of innocent and helpless Kashmiri women. The one well-publicized case was of a young bride, Mubina Ghani, who was detained and raped by BSF soldiers while she was traveling from the wedding to her husband’s home in May 1990. Her aunt was also raped. The authorities ordered the police to conduct an inquiry. Although the inquiry concluded that the women had been raped but the security forces were never prosecuted. Then there is the famous case of an air force officer Anjali Gupta, who filed a case in February 2005, against three of her superiors at a police station in Bangalore. The police refused to take any action. Anjali Gupta later approached the Karnataka High Court, nevertheless, surprisingly; the general court martial (GCM) proceedings against her were initiated. She was mentally tortured, pressurized, placed under house arrest. Later, Anjali Gupta was dismissed from service in 2005 after a five-member General Court Martial (GCM) jury convicted her of misappropriating funds, insubordination and failure to report for duty. On 11 September 2011, Anjali Gupta was found hanging at a relative’s home in Bhopal as it was expected and feared.
In November last year, a senior Group Captain of the Indian Air Force (IAF) posted in the crucial Eastern Command that looks at China, was removed from his current charge for allegedly harassing two women, one of them being the wife of a fellow officer. Sources claimed that IAF Headquarters received complaints from at least two women who alleged that the officer had harassed them. A court of Inquiry has been ordered. This is not first time allegations of harassment have been made against serving officers. The forces have a zero tolerance policy in dealing with cases of harassment and misbehavior. And, in the past officers have been sacked and in some cases even jailed for such offences.
Again in October last year, a 26-year-old Captain of Signal Corps, posted at the Alwar military station in Rajasthan, who was a prominent part of the first-ever Indian Army women officers’ contingent that showcased ‘Naari Shakti’ at Raj path in 2015 Republic Day parade also alleged sexual harassment by her senior and filed a sexual harassment complaint against none other than the Commanding Officer of her unit. A scanned copy of the letter written by her father said that while the army sat on her complaint for nearly two months, the accused was posted to a much larger commanding unit. Disappointed by the way her complaint was handled by the authorities, the father of the officer wrote an emotional appeal to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar to look into the matter. “If this is the way the Indian Army treats its daughters, I am not sure if any parent will ever send their daughters to the Army,” he wrote.
The most recent case is of one star general of the Indian army who was posted as Indian Defence Attaché in Kabul. Brigadier SK Narain has reportedly been expelled from Afghanistan over charges of raping an Afghan girl. Brigadier SK Narain was posted as defence attaché in the Indian Embassy in Kabul. The Afghan girl he raped had reportedly approached the Indian Embassy earlier to obtain a scholarship. She was later raped on the premises. For any human it is a heinous crime, however, the shameless Afghan government may take as an honour as they are trying to please the Indians without any reason. That’s why no criminal proceedings have been initiated against the accused Indian official and he was merely expelled from the country immediately. A uniformed rape was another story on the home front when a few weeks ago, three Indian Army soldiers raped an Indian girl in a moving train.
It seriously looks as if the Indian military circles have serious psychological disorders which need to be addressed immediately and at national level. Unfortunately that seems to be impossible at least during fanatic Modi regime.
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