Amidst celebrations of International Women’s Day, crimes against women are on the rise in the region.
In 2016, UP accounted for 9.5% of the total IPC crime reports in the entire country. Credit: Reuters
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What is this Women’s Day?”
–Rape survivor awaiting justice, Mahoba, Bundelkhand, UP
The year-ender list that got a lot of newsfeeds’ attention was the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report detailing crimes in the country – types, kinds, numbers. The report had quite a few disturbing findings concerning crimes against women and other marginalised groups in India. Taking the first position on this horrific list, state-wise, was UP. The country’s most populous state is also the worst ranked when it comes to violence against women.
In 2016, UP accounted for 9.5% of the total IPC crime reports in the entire country. It also recorded 14.5% of the total cases of crimes against women, and 12.4% of the total number of rape cases in all of India, only second to MP, which recorded 12.5% of all cases.
Reporting from Bundelkhand, one of the most patriarchal and regressive regions of UP, we know that these are only reported figures. More often, the deeply oppressive culture of silence, shame and humiliation – so familiar to women around the world in one form or the other – ensures that most acts of violence and cases of rape, harassment, torture, are stifled for good in the hinterland, swathes of land largely untouched by campaigns such as #MeToo and #TimesUp.
We have seen and reported on the sinister reflections of those NCRB findings in the districts of Mahoba, Lalitpur, Chitrakoot, Banda, among others, in rural Bundelkhand. Cases upon cases of dowry deaths, rapes, gang rapes, brutal torture – women who were beaten up, murdered, burnt alive, molested, harassed. With the BJP government’s anniversary celebrations in UP in the offing now, there is a need to take stock of the issue of violence against women – a big point on chief minister Adityanath’s damage-control agenda when he was sworn in on March 19 last year.
One of the ugliest factors in crimes against women in Bundelkhand – which becomes the reason as much as the catalyst – is almost an absolute lack of police effort or even co-operation. FIR’s, when registered, do not always start off serious investigations and often days turn into weeks and months. In Mahoba’s Kulpahar area, a case of gangrape registered against three men of the same village has been languishing since September 2017. “I’ve completed the applications they asked me to. They conducted the medical exam and then confirmed the assault. And nothing has happened since then,” says the complainant.
Officer Vansh Narayan Singh at the Kulpaha thana recites all the dhaaras the case has been registered under – molestation, harassment, rape – before informing us that one of the men has been arrested. The other two are absconding, and they await his return to the village. But the complainant and her family say that they’re not satisfied with the investigations and that the criminals are the “dabang” kinds who’ll evade arrest. T
They also insist that the man who has been arrested, of whom Singh speaks, had never been identified as one of the rapists. The complainant tells us that “money transactions have already happened”, and she’s certain of this because she and her father-in-law who, besides her, has been most vocal about the crime, have both received offers of compensation to “dabaao” the case. “Since we haven’t agreed to it and it’s over five months now we’ve been asking for justice, threats of physical harm have been coming our way.” Compensation is almost always followed by death threats around these parts – even the cops affirm that.
When we approached Singh for clarifications, he told us that the woman and her family are all mistaken, that there have been no threats. He then goes on to disavow previous statements and refuses to answer any more questions. His department is busy with Women’s Day events, he informs us. Meanwhile, the complainant asks us, her face and head covered with a pallu, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What is this Women’s Day?”
Khabar Lahariya is a rural, video-first digital news organisation with an all-women network of reporters in eight districts of Uttar Pradesh.