Meerut gangrape, conversion: Locals, UP police contradict victim's claims

Allegations and counter allegations have made investigations into the case of the gangrape and forced conversion of a 20-year-old girl in Meerut very murky, with police and hospital authorities now claiming that the cut marks and stitches on the victim’s abdomen were from a surgery for an ectopic pregnancy last month. This directly contradicts the victim’s account and her father’s complaint filed at the Kharkhauda police station. She claims that she had been taken to a hospital in Muzaffarnagar, some 50 km from Meerut, following injuries inflicted in the course of a repeated sexual assault, and was forcibly operated upon on 23 July. The woman, a BA student who taught English and Hindi for several months at a madrasa in her village Sarawa, has alleged that she was forcibly converted to Islam in a madrasa in Hapur. In addition, she has said she was held captive in another madrasa in Muzaffarnagar for three days, where she was sexually assaulted. The state BJP has quickly jumped into the fray with BJP state president Laxmikant Bajpai and legislator Sangeet Som visiting the family of the rape victim on Tuesday. State BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said the incident was the result of official laxity and apathy. [caption id=“attachment_1566773” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] With the case now irreversibly politicised, the Samajwadi Party government and the UP administration have made statements appearing to question the veracity of the complainant’s allegations. According to a report in The Indian Express , senior officials’ statements remained unclear about exactly what preliminary investigation has found. While police had on Tuesday confirmed sexual assault, the Indian Express report suggests otherwise: DGP A L Banerjee said the medical examination found that a surgery was performed on the girl for ectopic pregnancy. “The girl’s statement under CrPC 164 has been recorded before a magistrate and police will probe the case on the basis of that statement,” Banerjee told The Indian Express. In Lucknow, secretary (home) Kamal Saksena and IG (Law and Order) Amrendra Sengar, said the medical examination has not stated anything about sexual assault. Meanwhile, DIG of the Meerut Range K Satyanarayan confirmed the recovery of an affidavit regarding religious conversion performed by a maulvi from Hapur. The affidavit is dated July 30. The woman says she was forced to sign the paper. Satyanarayan says that the maulvi in question was taken into custody and reportedly maintains that the girl was willing to convert. Investigations into the allegations continues. Meanwhile, the victim’s claim that, while being held in the Muzaffarnagar madrasa, she saw other abducted Hindu girls who were being converted to be married off to sheikhs in the Middle East is also being disputed. The police said a raid of the madarsa had found no Hindu girls being held there. The girl has said the other women were also signing affidavits for visa applications and passports. The DIG said investigations into this allegation would continue too, though there was no evidence as yet of its veracity. The allegations and the media spotlight have attracted a flood of policemen, politiicans and journalists to the village. Another report from Sarawa in The Indian Express says the girl belongs to the locally influential Tyagi community. The madrasa where she taught for several months has been taken over by policemen,  and the school that has about 200 students  is now temporarily shut. The victim reportedly began to teach Hindi and English at the madrasa after having been introduced to the management by a Muslim friend, now reportedly among those arrested. The victim told the newspaper, she began to believe she was Muslim, “but that was out of fear.” She says that she quit teaching at the madarsa in order to focus on her studies. According to her father’s complaint, she was abducted after harassment from the main accused, named Salaullah (also variously referred to as Sanaullah and Sataullah in various news reports) who reportedly was pestering her to convert to Islam.At the madrasa, however, locals reportedly told the newspaper that Sanaullah was never associated with this madarsa. They also claimed the girl was sacked in May after not coming to work for a week. Apart from the politicisation of the investigation and the crime itself, adding to the confusion are some of the victim’s statements. For instance, in her quotes to the Indian Express, she delineates a timeline that appears inexplicable, with a mere 7 days between the alleged rape and the ultrasound confirming her pregnancy. “When Ramzan started, again they started trapping me. I was taken to a madrasa in Hapur on July 23 where I was gangraped and got pregnant. They did an ultrasound and got me operated. I was taken to another madrasa in Muzaffarnagar on July 30 where an old woman would beat me up and feed me cow meat,” the report quotes the victim as saying. Meanwhile, as Meerut continued to remain tense and under a blanket of police security, the victim recorded her statement on Tuesday in front of a magistrate. Three of the four people named in the complaint were arrested. These are Sarawa village head or pradhan Mohammed Nawab, a woman named Samar Jahan and her daughter Nishat, suspected to be the friend who introduced the victim to those at the madarsa. Main accused Salaullah is absconding. The BJP has upped the ante on the state government, demanding a CBI probe, demanding immediate arrest of the accused. What they have not demanded is a clear account on what exactly transpired. The VHP has claimed there is a conspiracy involving human trafficking as well as organ trade. Speaking in Allahabad, Pravin Togadia repeated his old theory that girls in Kerala, West Bengal and elsewhere had fallen prey to such conspiracies. He said the VHP has a helpline number for such complaints. BJP MP from Meerut Rajinder Aggarwal raised the issue in Parliament and demanded a CBI probe into the incident. Alok Sisodia, the BJP’s media coordinator for UP West, was quoted as saying “We want to know the address of the madrassa where the woman was confined and also about the whereabouts of the nursing home where she was operated upon; who were the doctors who operated upon her and who were they reporting to. We will put pressure on the administration to reveal the details.” Until those details really emerge, and with politicians of all hue leaping in to get involved, the hope for clarity and resolution may remain a dim one.