http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/117496/India/dalit-girls-raped-but-up-police-call-cases-political-canards.html
Dalit girls raped but UP Police call cases political canards
Piyush Srivastava
Lucknow, October 23, 2010
Updated 15:12 IST
Bihar: Dalit women striped, thrashed Cops deny filing FIR in rape case
At least three Dalit girls were raped across Uttar Pradesh this week,
but the police called these incidents politically motivated canards.
This came to light on a day when chief minister Mayawati proclaimed
that incidents of rape had decreased by 15 per cent this year and
crime against Scheduled Castes in the state had gone down by 25 per
cent.
She said this at a police commemoration day function on Thursday.
Ironically, the rape of the three girls from poor low caste families,
that she champions, did not figure in her speech.
On the contrary, the three heinous incidents were labelled as
politically-motivated crimes "staged" during the ongoing panchayat
elections.
The victims are 17-year-old Sanjeeta from Kurhans village in Azamgarh
district, 16-year-old Moni from Gurgujja village in Hardoi and
16-year-old Uma from Semrakhurd village in Gorakhpur. (The names of
the girls have been changed.) "Sudhir Tiwari and Hari Prakash Yadav
kidnapped Sanjeeta on Monday. They raped her later dumped her in a dry
pond. Instead of arresting the accused, the police kept my daughter in
custody when I approached them to file a complaint. They released her
on Friday saying her arrest could trigger a controversy during the
panchayat polls," Sanjeeta's father Jay Ram said.
Additional SP Sarwesh Singh Rana said: "We have arrested two of the
accused. But we have yet to confirm if it's a rape. Sanjeeta is close
to one of the accused. We believe someone bribed her father to
register a rape case against the men to malign the candidate they are
supporting in the panchayat polls." Moni has a similar story to tell.
The police in Hardoi said she was having an affair with one of her
rapists. Her father, Ram Lal, has accused Vijendra Kumar, an upper
caste youth, of barging into their home on Tuesday and raping her at
gunpoint. No one else was at home then.
Uma was also kidnapped and gang-raped on Tuesday. Though her father
filed a complaint against two men in the area, they are yet to be
arrested. They are reportedly campaigning for the panchayat polls.
Human rights activist Manoj Kumar Singh said: "UP Police reports say
of the 826 rape cases reported in the first half of 2010, 178 victims
are Dalits. The police in Azamgarh, Hardoi and Gorakhpur often
hesitate to register rape cases. They label these as
politically-motivated crimes or consensual sex."
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