How Mayawati’s own partymen have created a Hall of Shame

Mayawati’s Uttar Pradesh is by no means the rape capital of India. Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal are in a dead heat for that dubious honour.

It may suit Rahul Gandhi’s politics to paint UP as a lawless land where crimes against women are mounting; but his own Andhra Pradesh bids fair to surpass UP in terms of number of crimes against women. In fact, adjusted for population, UP has one of the lowest per capita crime rate against women.

Then why is Mayawati rattled by recent allegations of rape incidents in the state?

The problem is, her own partymen, including ministers and legislators (MLAs), are sullying her image. In Mayawati’s Hall of Shame, there are at least six Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs, including a minister, facing rape charges. Another minister is facing a dowry charge. Add the number of other BSP legislators accused of murder, attempts to murder, fraud and cheating, and the numbers swell to more than a score.

Mayawati’s sensitivity to rape and violence against women stems from three things. One, she is the person in the line of fire, as she holds charge of 32 ministries, including the Home Ministry and Intelligence. Two, it is galling for her to note that her own partymen are into rape and pillage. And three, as India’s most powerful woman politician, she cannot but be seen as a defender of women’s rights.

This is why she is ultra-prompt in acting whenever there is even a whiff of involvement by any BSP legislator in cases involving rape or attempted rape. Last week, she suspended BSP MLA Shahnawaz Rana, when the police registered a case against his cousins and security aides on charges of attempting to rape two Delhi women returning home from a holiday in Muzaffarnagar.

BSP’s Hall of Shame is unusual even in a country inured to violence against women because no other state has seven serving MLAs being accused of such crimes. Here’s a complete guide to the Hall of Shame in India’s most populous state.

Anandsen Yadav: This MLA was dismissed as Minister of State for Food Preservation and is currently in jail for his alleged role in the disappearance, and by all indications, murder, of a law student from Faizabad.

The young woman, Shashi, went missing in October 2009. Her father, a BSP worker, implicated Yadav in the case, alleging that Shashi and the minister had been close to each other and Shashi had been pressing for marriage.

Apparently, when Shashi threatened to expose her relationship with Yadav, she conveniently disappeared. Incidentally, Yadav was in jail for a murder case when the Mayawati government was formed in May 2007. He took the oath much later. Last month, a sessions court in Faizabad held him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Purushottam Naresh Dwivedi: This BSP MLA from Naraini (Banda) is accused of raping a girl and for the subsequent cover-up. A poor BSP worker sent his daughter to work at Dwivedi’s house.

About two months ago, the girl registered a case of rape against him, while Dwivedi registered a counter complaint, claiming that she had stolen money and a cellphone from his place. The local police promptly arrested the girl for theft, but released her after 32 days for lack of evidence. Dwivedi is now in jail facing charges of rape.

Bhagwan Sharma, alias Guddu Pandit: The BSP MLA from Dibai was arrested after a research scholar in Agra University accused him of rape in June, 2008.

The Kasganj police station in Kanshiram Nagar registered a case soon after the medical report of the victim confirmed rape. Guddu Pandit is out on bail. Recently, he told the court that he had settled with the victim’s family. But the court has not yet given a decision in his case.

Haji Alam: The Bulandshahr MLA Haji Alam and his brother Haji Yunus own a circus and a Muzaffarnagar court has issued non-bailable warrants (NBWs) against Haji Alam in a case of rape and child labour at the circus. On June 5, 2003, a Delhi-based NGO, Pravasi Nepali Mitra Manch, lodged an FIR at the Kotwali police station in Muzaffarnagar, alleging that boys and girls, all from Nepal, were forcibly kept at a circus owned by the brothers.

Post-complaint, a police raid at the circus released 32 boys and girls: while the relatives of some of them came from Nepal and took them away, 28 girls were sent to Nari Nekatan in Saharanpur (UP). They were later sent home to Nepal, with the Nepal embassy’s help.

The state government transferred the investigation from the local police to the Crime Branch (CID), which gave them a clean chit on December 30, 2004. But a court reviewed the case diary and summoned the victims and the accused on an application filed by some of the victims. In court, four female victims alleged molestation by Yunus and Alam and the circus staff; one girl alleged rape, the victims’ lawyer, Kailash Chand says. The case has been reopened.

Shiv Prasad Yadav: In January 2011, an Etawah sessions court ordered a criminal case against BSP legislator Shiv Prasad Yadav, his employee Vinod Awasthi, two others and unnamed police officials. The case involves the alleged rape of a woman, who has been in jail since December 23 on the charge of driving her husband to suicide.

After hearing the police report in the case, Chief Judicial Magistrate Zaigam Uddin ordered the Etawah police to lodge an FIR against the persons named in the woman’s application and submit a copy of the report within 24 hours.

Apart from Yadav and Awasthi, the woman — who is four months pregnant — had named her father-in-law Omkar Nath Sharma, sister-in-law Soni and officials of the Bakerwar police station. She alleged that Awasthi raped her at her home on December 16 in the presence of her husband Ganesh Shanker Sharma.

Ganesh committed suicide on December 21 after her brother and other relatives questioned him about the rape.

But the police — allegedly under the MLA’s influence — framed her and five of her relatives in a case of abetting the suicide following a complaint lodged by Omkar Nath Sharma. The court’s order comes five days after the police had given a clean chit to the MLA and claimed that the woman and her father Vanslal had made the allegations as an afterthought on January 18. But it turned out that the victim’s father had written to the SSP, complaining of his daughter’s torture and harassment by her husband, Sharma, Soni and Awasthi.

Yogendra Sagar: BSP MLA Yogendra Sagar, his brother and another associate are

accused of gangrape. The victim was an undergraduate student in April 2008. The incident happened in Badaun district and Sagar represents Bilsi constituency in the state Assembly.

The police had issued a non-bailable warrant against him and had declared him an absconder in July 2008 when he failed to appear in court despite repeated summons. The MLA was later booked for allegedly lodging a fabricated case against the brothers of the rape victim and threatening witnesses in the case.

Ayodhya Pal: The Chitrakoot police filed an FIR against UP Sports Minister Ayodhya Pal under the Dowry Prevention Act on instructions from the Chief Judicial Magistrate in January 2010. The court also ordered the name of his son Om Dutt, alias Raju Pal, to be included in the FIR along with the minister’s wife, brother Raj Kumar Pal, two daughters and the wife of his brother.

The court passed the order on an application filed by Prabal Pratap Pal who alleged that the police were not filing an FIR against the minister and his family on charges of seeking dowry. According to Prabal, his daughter Preeti Pal, a nurse at Banda District Hospital, was engaged to the minister’s son Om on December 7, 2008, but the BSP leader broke the engagement a year later after he failed to give him Rs 50 lakh as dowry.

Prabal said he tried to settle the matter by involving some common friends, but the minister did not pay heed and finalised his son’s marriage to another girl.

Meanwhile, Prabal alleged that he had received a call threatening him to withdraw the case. “On January 31, 2010, a person called on my cellphone and threatened me with dire consequences if I didn’t stop pursuing the matter. The number belonged to a former state BSP president,” he said, and added that he had informed the police about it.

With MLAs, ministers and party colleagues like these, Mayawati doesn’t need enemies. She has to fight on several fronts – including one at home.