Unnao and Kathua rapes: Watchdog groups avoid responsibility to pursue cases, pass buck to each other

Two horrendous rapes have grabbed the headlines across the country. The rape in Kathua district of Jammu earlier this year resulted in the murder of an eight-year old child. The second rape of a sixteen-year-old girl that took place in mid-June 2017, has resulted in the death of the victim’s father, followed by the survivor threatening to immolate herself outside the UP chief minister’s residence in Lucknow. But the most shocking aspect of these crimes is that the two statutory bodies meant to protect the interests of these victims have not spoken out in their support. The chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW) Rekha Sharma has not condemned either incident. When contacted, Sharma said, “Jammu and Kashmir does not come under (our purview). We do not go beyond Punjab.” She went on to elaborate, “Both cases involve minor girls and therefore, come under the purview of the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). We take up cases of those who are 18 years of age and above.” The chairperson of the NCPCR Stuti Kacker, a retired IAS bureaucrat, reiterated the views expressed by Sharma. “The NCPCR’s purview does not extend to Jammu and Kashmir, but of course, I am saddened by the death of the girl. My heart goes out to her. After all, she was a bachcha,” said Kacker. Questioned on why the NCPCR had not intervened in the Unnao rape case, Kacker’s position was that this case did not fall under the purview of the NCPCR either, since the survivor was not a minor. [caption id=“attachment_4424283” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Jammu and Kashmir Police. AFP[/caption] The Unnao survivor’s age remains a little tricky. Some newspaper reports claim she was 17 years of age when she was raped in June last year. Others report that she was 16 years of age at the time of the rape. But the fact is that even if she has entered her 18th year in 2018, there is little doubt that she was a minor when the rape occurred and the NCPCR was statutorily bound by law to have taken up this matter. When this was pointed out to Kacker, she said, “The NCPCR did not receive any complaint, otherwise we would have looked into the matter. Maybe one of my members has been dealing with it. I will need to look into the matter. As of date, she is 18 years of age and the matter must be taken up by the NCW… Now that the National Human Rights Commission has taken up the matter of the Unnao rape case, we cannot get into it. You must not forget that we are a small organisation with limited powers.” Former chairperson of the NCPCR Shanta Sinha does not agree with this point of view. According to her, statutory bodies must speak out on issues of human rights abuse. Sinha also pointed out the NCPCR had been (during her tenure) given permission to work on child rights in Jammu and Kashmir. “The NCPCR had been given permission to work on child rights in Jammu and Kashmir. We couldn’t issue orders, but we could put in requests. We worked in both Baramullah and Kupwara,” said Sinha. Sinha also believes that the NHRC should have handed the matter over to the NCPCR because it possesses the expertise to investigate the matter with a sense of urgency as also to protect the interests of the child and show sensitivity while dealing with such cases. Activists believes the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act is a tough law especially since it stipulates the onus to prove innocence is on the accused. “The accused in the Unnao case should have been arrested under POCSO,” pointed out a Delhi-based activist. If the Kathua rape case is in the public gaze, credit for this must go to Jammu and Kashmir state commission for women chairperson Nayeema Mehjoor. Mehjoor, a former journalist, pointed out that she had been contacted by some Gujjar-Bakarwal families when the girl went missing on 10 January this year. “When her body was found in some forests near her home in the village of Rasana, I decided to visit her home. Members of both the Hindu and Muslim communities were extremely upset at her rape and murder, and expressed their feelings openly. But while they were talking to me, I could sense something fishy going on. There were people keeping vigil during my visit and listening in on my interactions,” said Mehjoor. “I shared my apprehensions with Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti who ordered an inquiry by the Jammu and Kashmir Crime Branch. The report is now in the public domain and everyone knows what a heinous crime has been committed,” she said, adding, “We must look at it from that point-of-view and not communalise the death of a young child. There were some women who went on a hunger strike in Jammu demanding the investigation be conducted by the CBI. Anuradha Bhasin (senior journalist) and I went to meet them. We pointed out to these women that the Jammu and Kashmir police force is headed by SP Vaid, who is from Jammu. The earlier crime branch head was A Puri who was also from Jammu (he has been transferred recently). But there are some politicians who are leading this communal campaign.” Mehjoor believes the girl has been used as a ‘soft target’ by some right-wing elements. They want to intimidate the Bakarwal Muslim nomads who have built their homes in forest land in the Kathua district, in order to vacate them. Mehjoor raised this issue at the IAS Shastri Academy in Mussorie. “We cannot lose our humanity,” I had told the IAS probationers. Meanwhile, with regard to the Unnao case, Jamini Srivastava of the NHRC pointed out that the UP Police had failed to inform the commission of the death of the survivor’s father in police custody as is mandatory under law. It was only when the NHRC took suo motu cognisance of the killing, based on media reports and asked the state government and the DGP UP to provide details of his health, that the UP Police took some belated action including the arrest of BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar’s brother Atul Singh. But social activists believe that both Sengar and Atul Singh should have been arrested under POCSO. So strong is the grip of the MLA and his family on the village of Makhi, around 15 kilometres from Unnao — where the survivor and her family live — that they have refused to return to their homes fearing for their lives. The Unnao rape survivor’s frightened grandmother has written a letter to the Chief Minister’s Office pointing out that despite the injuries her son had suffered, he had been kept in jail and was shifted to hospital only on Sunday (8 April) when he died. “To force us to withdraw the rape complaint, Sengar and his aides implicated my son and daughter-in-law in several false cases. When we refused to succumb to their threats, Sengar’s brother and his associates barged into my house with arms and attacked my son at 6 pm on 3 April threatening to kill us. They tied my son to a tree and thrashed him mercilessly,” she wrote in her letter. “I request the lawmakers… to take strict action against the men as I believe Senger’s men might eliminate my family.” The UP Police has set up a special investigation team (SIT) to look into the father’s death. The SIT probe is separate from the judicial investigation ordered into the incident. Follow all the latest updates here