June 5, 2014
Letter to Commissioner of Police
We are writing to demand your immediate action against police
personnel of the Parliament Street Police Station who were involved in
assaulting and brutalising a peaceful group of protestors today.
The facts are as follows.
• A group of people belonging to the Dalit community from Bhagana village, Haryana, have
been sitting in a peaceful dharna at Jantar Mantar for the last one
month, in pursuit of their demand for justice in the case of abduction
and gang rape of four minor girls. Early this morning, a large force of
policemen appeared at Jantar Mantar and tried to evict the protestors
who were sleeping there. pulled down their tent and scattered their
belongings.
• The Bhagana protestors (including the families of the rape
survivors and the girls themselves) went to the Parliament Street Police
Station this afternoon at about 1400 hours, in order to present a
memorandum to the officer in charge asking to be allowed to stay in
Jantar Mantar since they had nowhere else to go.
• The Bhagana group was accompanied by representatives of women’s
organisations, Dalit organisations and students’ organisations. The
mothers of two of the rape survivors were leading the group.
• The group was stopped by some policemen at the barricade outside
the thana. Their request to be allowed to go inside and meet the office
in charge was denied. Some policemen on duty at the barricade spoke to
the Bhagana group in Haryanvi and asked them to go back and not to make
trouble. The women argued with these policemen, insisting on being
allowed to go and meet the officer in charge.
• While the argument was going on, some policemen started pushing the
group back from the barricade, using undue force and targeting the
women by grabbing their private parts and pushing their hands into the
anal region. The mothers of the survivors and several women activists
(including Adv Pyoli Swatija of Samajwadi Jan Parishad, , Ms Sumedha
Baudh of Rashtiya Dalit Mahila Andolan and Ms Rakhi – of NTUI) were
attacked in this manner.
• At this point a senior police officer (in uniform but without a
name badge) came out and shouted out “Are ye aise nahi manenge lathi
ghusao.”
• At this, some 45 women police charged forward and attacked the women
by thrusting at their private parts with batons. The women who were in
the front resisted this attack and struggled with the police women.
Several policemen were also in the melee and were physically attacking
women protestors.
• Several activists were taken into custody and held for more than an
hour, after which they were released without any charge being made
against them.
• None of the police had name badges except one police woman (Suman
D) who removed it after a few minutes. However, we are confident that we
can identify most if not all the attackers by face including the
officer who gave the order for the sexual attack.
You are surely aware that the acts committed by the policemen and
women are criminal offences under the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act,
2013.
We demand that the concerned police personnel be immediately removed
from service and charged under Section 354 (sexual assault). The officer
who gave the order for the sexual attack should be charged under
Section 376 read with Section 511 (attempt to rape).
We are shocked to see that the police personnel under your command seem to have forgotten the bitter lessons of December 2012.
We are told that large sums of money have been spent for training the
rank and file of Delhi police in “gendersensitive policing”. Our
suggestion to you is: please do not waste any more of the taxpayers’
money on these futile public relations exercises. Instead, please take
strong, immediate and exemplary action against personnel accused of such
crimes.
We look forward to a response from you. We will be happy to come and present you with evidence in support of our complaint.
KALYANI MENON SEN
On behalf of Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression
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