Murthal

Haryana Government Pulled Up on Murthal Gang Rape Case

The high court of Haryana and Punjab asserted that there was no doubt that gang rape had occurred during the Haryana jat agitations.

People walk past an overturned mobile urinal during a demonstration by members of the Jat community in Bahadurgarh in Haryana. Credit: Reuters/Adnan Abidi/Files

Chandigarh: At least 30 people were killed and property worth crores of rupees destroyed during the ten-day Jat agitation in February over reservations in government jobs and education. Murthal, located near NH-1, witnessed some of the worst violence and arson during the agitation.

Groups of demonstrators chopped down eucalyptus and sal trees that line NH1 to stop traffic between Punjab, Haryana, Uttarkhand, Himachal Pradesh and the National Capital Region. The gang rape allegedly took place on February 22 and was dismissed by the Haryana government as a rumour for a long time.

The high court of Punjab and Haryana pulled up the Haryana government on Monday for seeking more time to “collect more facts” about the Murthal gang rape case. The court responded to the government’s request by stating that the fact of the rape hadn’t been denied, it was now all about identifying the victim and the accused. “Let’s not deviate from the main path which is identification of the victim and ensuring justice,” the court observed.

The court asserted that the gang rape had occurred undoubtedly during the Jat agitations in the state. A division bench of S.S. Saron and Lisa Gill observed, “There can be no doubt…even they (Haryana) are not denying it.”

“Earlier, there was reluctance on your part to even register an FIR. But now, you have accepted that rape had taken place,” the bench said. The assertion came after Mehta sought additional time to come up with “something more concrete”.

The court also directed the government to produce the second part of the Prakash Singh Committee report on July 7, the next date of hearing. The Prakash Singh Committee had reported on the Jat agitation and consequent violence that had taken place in Haryana.

The report indicted several top state police and civil officials for failing to control the riots in February this year, leading to the death of 30 people. It identified about 90 officials who indulged in “deliberate negligence” when violence hit the state.

Freedom Under Fire: Class XI Student Dies as Protests Spread in Kashmir; Pistol, Threat Letter to Kanhaiya, Umar Recovered from Bus

A round-up of news, both bad and good, on the rights front from India.

Protests in Srinagar on Friday against the killing of four persons over the Handwara incident. Credit: PTI

Class XI student fifth to die as protests spread in Kashmir

A 19-year-old Class XI student, who was among the four injured Friday when security forces opened fire on protesters hurling stones at an army camp in the Natnusa area of Kupwara, died of injuries in a Srinagar hospital, The Indian Express reported.

Arif Hussain was the fifth person to die in protests that started in Handwara on Tuesday (April 12) over the alleged molestation of a minor girl, who is now said to be “under police protection” along with her father, by a soldier.

The protests have spilled to other parts of Kashmir, with clashes reported from Baramulla, Kangan and Tral. The Hurriyat faction headed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front have called for a shutdown on Saturday.

Pistol, threat letter to Kanhaiya, Umar recovered from bus

According to a NDTV report, a loaded pistol and a letter threatening to behead JNU students Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid were recovered from a bag in a DTC bus.

The police have tightened security measures after this.

Murthal gang rape complainant gets threat call

Bobby Joshi, the complainant in the Murthal gang rape case, has alleged that he received a call threatening him with dire consequences for “speaking too much” on the matter, a report in The Hindu says.

Joshi’s complaint lead the police to file an FIR alleging gang rapes in Murthal during the Jat agitation in February.

Anti-Maoist outfit that ‘hounded’ activists, journalists disbanded

According to a report in The Indian Express, the Samajik Ekta Manch, a group working out of Bastar’s Jagdalpur area, that has come under fire for its alleged role in hounding out activists, journalists and lawyers, announced its own “disbanding” with immediate effect on Friday.

The Manch’s self-proclaimed agenda was to rally against Maoists. The group drew flak for its close relationship with the district police and for branding journalist Malini Subramaniam, lawyers Isha Khandelwal and Shalini Gera of Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group, activist Bela Bhati and economist Jean Dreze as Maoist sympathisers. These activists have called the Manch a “front for the police” and an attempt to intimidate “any voice critical of police excesses”.

In parched Latur, 10,000 litres water for a helipad for Maharashtra minister

Maharashtra Agriculture Minister Eknath Khadse landed in a controversy on Friday after it emerged that 10,000 litres of water was allegedly used for a makeshift helipad in a village in Latur district where he was going for a review of the drought situation in Marathwada, a report in The Indian Express says.

Dismissing the protests, Khadse said that untreated water released from a filtration plant located in Belkund village was used for the helipad. “The allegations that drinking water was used for the helipad are baseless and false. The untreated water was released from the filtration plant that had been lying idle for the past six years. This water was used for the helipad,” he said.

On Ambedkar’s birth anniversary, Dalit scholar ‘evicted’ from Hyderabad varsity

According to a Hindustan Times report, a Dalit research scholar was allegedly evicted from a university in Hyderabad on Thursday, sparking anger among students attending a function to mark the 125th birth anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar.

Koonal Duggal said he may have been targeted by the English and Foreign Languages University for participating in the agitation seeking justice for Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula, whose suicide in January sparked a debate over caste bias on campuses.

“The moment I finished my speech and song, three security guards pushed me and tried to forcibly take me to (the) chief security officer,” Koonal said. “They did not give any reason for this. They, in fact, disrupted the event.”

Do you know of any other incident we should highlight in this column? Write to me at jahnavi@cms.thewire.in.

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Haryana Police Add Gang Rape Charge To FIR In Murthal Case

The SIT has taken note of two letters corroborating the rape allegations, one from a college student in Faridabad, another from an Australia-based NRI.

New Delhi: The Haryana police told the Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday that the special investigation team probing the allegations of mass rape in Murthal during the Jat reservation agitation has added IPC sections pertaining to rape to the first information report (FIR) already registered. The Manohar Lal Khattar government had initially dismissed all reports of sexual violence during the agitation, and even the police had said that they had not received any complaints of sexual violence.

The high court had taken cognisance of a February 24, 2016 report in The Tribune that highlighted the incident first, and ordered an investigation into the matter. The Wire travelled to Murthal and reported on the government’s conspicuous silence on the rape allegations. Sonepat DSP Satish Sharma had then told The Wire that the only complaints of sexual harassment received were the ones made by the truck drivers. Although 14 complaints of arson and murder threats were received, none of those mentioned anything about women being sexually harassed, Sharma had said, adding that the police too had not found any evidence of rape and assault in their investigations until then.

This new development comes after the SIT took note of two letters corroborating the rape allegations. The first letter, sent anonymously from Mathura Road in Faridabad, states that the victim was a final year college student returning from her college hostel along with her father when she was gangraped. The other letter is from an Australia-based NRI, and was sent to the police by a local news channel. The Cyber Cell, Sonipat, has been directed to contact the channel and find out the source of the letter. The letter, which has since has gone viral on social media, said she had reached New Delhi airport from Australia on February 21 and was travelling on National Highway-1 near Murthal where she was allegedly gang raped.

“Since the content of both communications reveals the commission of offence under Section 376D of the Indian Penal Code, the relevant Section has been added and further investigation will be conducted on these communications to verify the content,” said the Haryana police affidavit to the court yesterday.

The police is in the process of preparing a list of colleges/technical institutes with girls’ hostels to identify the anonymous victim.

The first FIR on the alleged gang rapes was registered on February 28 after a woman from Narela in Delhi appeared before a Special Investigation Team comprising three senior women officers, and claimed that she was raped by seven men on the night of February 22. The police and the local community had dismissed her complaint as a family dispute. A local resident told The Wire a month ago that the local panchayat had also condemned her decision as an attempt to defame the Jat community and she was socially ostracised.

Read our previous ground report from Murthal for the background story.

With inputs from PTI

A Conspicuous Silence in Murthal on Rape Allegations

The local community has dismissed all reports of sexual violence and rape, but the atmosphere in Murthal is shrouded in mystery.

Murthal, Haryana: On February 24, The Tribune reported that several women had been assaulted and raped near Murthal, about 50 km from Delhi, during the violence that broke out as the agitation for Jat reservation intensified and inched closer to Delhi. Two weeks since the alleged incidents, however, villagers in the area maintain a terse silence on the issue. When we visited the area on March 9, it almost seemed like nothing had happened there.

However, taking cognisance of The Tribune report, the High Court of Punjab and Haryana has ordered an investigation on the alleged rapes and has appointed advocate Anupam Gupta as amicus curiae on the case. The next hearing is scheduled for March 14.

The Tribune report quoted an eyewitness as saying a few the women were reunited with their families at Sukhdev Dhaba after the alleged rapes. The owner of the dhaba, Amrik Singh, was quoted as saying that he learnt of these incidents around 3 am on February 23, when women were heard wailing. However, Singh appears to have withdrawn his statement, with some reports claiming he has said there were no incidents of rape in the area.

Singh was unavailable for comment when The Wire tried to contact him. However, The manager of the dhaba, who did not want to be named, claimed the reports of assault around Murthal were part of a political conspiracy against the BJP. “I am not from the BJP, but these rumours of rape are being spread just to defame them. Gundas (goons) from other parties were sent here, they were the ones rioting, burning cars and harassing travellers who refused to get out of their cars,” he said.

Sukhdev Dhaba along NH-1. Credit: Akhil Kumar

When specifically asked about the reported rapes, he said that it was illogical that families would have tried to leave in the middle of the night as the roads had been blocked all day and people took shelter wherever possible. “The bras and other articles of clothing may have been planted,” he said, about the clothes that were allegedly found along the highway where the assaults were said to have occurred.

Many villagers are furious with the extent of news coverage the alleged incidents have garnered. “Some truck drivers just wanted to come on TV, that’s why they said all of those things. They were forced to tell the truth in front of the police and withdraw their statements to the media. They are maligning the community and their demands,” said a shopkeeper near Sukhdev Dhaba, who did not want his name disclosed. Two truck drivers had previously come forward to say they had seen women being dragged into farms and raped. However, they did not confirm their statement when questioned by the police.

Single complaint of rape

When we visited the local police station at Murthal, we were told no questions could be answered as the case was under the deputy superintendent of police, but did say that no complaints of rape or sexual harassment had been made.

In a telephonic conversation with The Wire, Sonepat DSP Satish Sharma said the only complaints of sexual harassment received were the ones made by the truck drivers. Although 14 complaints of arson and murder threats were received, none of those mentioned anything about women being sexually harassed, Sharma said, adding that the police too did not find any evidence of rape and assault in their investigations so far. The police has sent for forensic analysis the articles of clothing found along the highway and is awaiting this report, he said.

However, a Narela-based woman has filed an FIR against seven persons, including two of her brothers-in-law, alleging that they gangraped her in Murthal on the night of February 22. However, with reports claiming the woman has filed rape complaints twice before, one of which was proven false by the police, her allegations have met with derision.

“She already has some family property dispute,” said the shopkeeper outside Sukhdev Dhaba. “Nobody from this area has complained, and she has filed false cases before. The Jat community is being defamed by these people. Even her local panchayat had a meeting about her actions and condemned them. Now she is not coming out of her house, she is too scared,” he added.

Veil of silence

Many of the villagers we met claimed they were “not in the area” or “in Delhi” during the agitations and therefore could not say anything about what happened during that time. Female villagers living close to the police station said that though there was chaos in the region, they had not heard of any attacks on women.

In Larsoli village, many women were stopped from talking to us by male family members. The village sarpanch too dismissed the allegations of rape, saying, “Nothing of that sort (rapes) happened here, definitely not in our village, and probably not anywhere in the region. There were roadblocks and some destruction of property. But none of these things about women being assaulted is true. It is all part of a political campaign from those who oppose the agitation and want to delegitimise it.”

The demeanour of the villagers would suggest that nothing extraordinary had taken place in the area, with everyone quick to say that everything was now peaceful. However, there appears to be more than what meets the eye.

Women’s organisations and civil society members are not satisfied with the way the investigation have been handled and have demanded a “free and fair” probe into the allegations of sexual violence.

Rajkumari Dahiya, from the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) who visited the site the day after the reported incidents, said, “When we first went, everyone seemed agreed that something of this sort (the rapes) had happened even though people were not willing to speak out openly. But now the mood has changed. Nobody is willing to say anything. Everyone is scared that members of their families will be picked up by the police and implicated in the incident if they speak out.”

“The rapes and cover up in Murthal are yet another instance of sexual violence condoned and tacitly encouraged by a BJP government. It’s a shame that (Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal) Khattar who tells schoolgirls to avoid skirts to be protected from rape, is covering up a mass rape on his watch,” added Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association.

“The role of state machinery is not trustworthy regarding the investigation. As they have been trying to hide the facts since initial stage. But those who have visited Murthal and around including the fact finding team of AIDWA feel that circumstantial evidences also support the media reports. A free and fair investigation is absolutely necessary of the incidents,” says a release from AIDWA.

The local community vehemently dismisses all media reports of sexual violence and rape, and although the facts are yet to be ascertained, the atmosphere in Murthal remains shrouded in mystery.