Image Courtesy:india.com
Uttar Pradesh reported at least four incidents of crimes against women in a span of just over a week. The successive incidents are concerning given how in at least two of these cases the victims hailed from Dalit families, and another woman hailed from a backward caste family.
On May 7, The Telegraph reported how a 52-year-old Dalit woman named Sharda Devi was allegedly killed by the local police. As per the news report, the Pachokhara police team visited the woman’s house in Firozabad on Saturday night for a “routine” check on her husband and sons. The three were on parole at the time. However, when the mother-of-four said the men were not home, the police attacked her, said her daughter Monika Jatav. As per the daughter’s account, the officials came to Imaliya village in Tundla late in the night. One officer grabbed her mother’s neck and pushed her to the ground. When Sharda Devi fainted, the police ran and left the daughter to call for help. “Some other police persons arrived with the ambulance and took her to a hospital, where she was declared dead,” Jatav told the Telegraph.
While the police refuted the allegations, the post-mortem report found no injury marks and described the cause of death as “unknown”. SSP Ashish Tiwari speaking to Times of India said that a panel of three doctors said she died due to multiple organ failure after pus collected in her lungs. However, a senior government medico-legal expert told The Telegraph a forensic science MD must be included in the post-mortem teams to completely dismiss the allegations.
Six days before this incident, the Chandauli police were accused of bludgeoning to death and then hanging 22-year-old Nisha Yadav, daughter of an alleged criminal. Her post mortem report too describes an “unknown” cause of death. Still, her body was sent for a viscera test, implying poisoning. Further, six policemen were suspended after her death and booked for homicide not amounting to murder and voluntarily causing hurt. District Magistrate Sanjeev Singh ordered an inquiry on May 8 with the report to be submitted in 15 days.
Meanwhile, an Aligarh police constable was accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl, who is related to his family. According to the Tribune, the Bulandshahr officer was suspended and arrested on Sunday after the City Senior Superintendent of Police sent a report about the Sunday incident. The girl was visiting a relative on May 6 when the accused took the girl to a neighbouring village on his motorcycle and allegedly assaulted her. He further threatened her against complaining about it to anybody, but the girl told her family. A case was registered against the accused under the POCSO Act.
This was days after a 13-year-old girl was sexually assaulted on May 4 by the cop in-charge of a police station in Lalitpur, reported NDTV. The Dalit girl had approached the police station to register a complaint of kidnapping and gang rape by four other men. However, the police lodged a case against six people, including the SHO and the girl’s aunt, who received the girl after both incidents of violence. According to the Indian Express, the incident finally came to light when the girl approached members of a child helpline. The SHO has since been suspended after the girl’s mother lodged a complaint. Station House Officer Tilakdhari Saroj was also arrested. All police officers posted where the alleged incident took place were removed from duty.
All four of these incidents occurred within the span of a week and targeted women from socio-economically backward communities. The survivors or relatives of their survivors showed courage in coming forward to report these atrocities. However, the real concern in these instances is that the police – meant to be the enforcers of the law – are the main accused.
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