for a sensitive report regarding class/gender/sexual assault see the following:
(from tehelka)
Town Mouse, Village Mouse
The many versions of the alleged Noida gangrape expose the dissonance between
two worlds that neither comprehend nor accept each other, writes ROHINI MOHAN
THE CLASSROOMS of the village school in Ghadi Chaukhandi lie empty, the benches
thrown out of order by the last group of students who left in a hurry. A
blackboard has a half-drawn diagram of ‘The Human Digestive System’. Some
teachers sit quietly in the small garden outside. In one poorly-lit classroom,
about 35 students chorus a computer
War ready : Sure of his son's innocence, Bedpal Yadav(second from left) gave
him up to the policescience lesson. “It’s a special class for ‘inter’
students,” says Harpal Singh Yadav, the Principal of Sri Krishna High School
and Inter College, “We declared an indefinite holiday on the day boys from this
college were accused of rape. We won’t reopen until this drama ends.”
What the principal refers to as ‘drama’ has his village seething with rage.
Eleven boys aged between 18 and 24 were arrested from Ghadi Chaukhandi for
allegedly gangraping a 24-year-old MBA student on 5 January. An FIR was lodged
by the victim’s classmate, Amit Pawar, who was with her when the incident took
place. Police say Pawar and the girl are students of Amity College, Noida. In
the FIR, Pawar says the two had just finished shopping in The Great India Place
mall in Sector 38, Noida, and were driving towards Delhi in the girl’s Wagon R
when “about six village boys on motorcycles” stopped them. He alleges that they
forcibly entered the car, and one of the boys drove them around, “looking for a
secluded, dark place.” This was around 6:00 pm. “They stopped at an empty area
[later identified as Pushta Parthala Khanjarpur in Sector 71, a few kilometers
from Ghadi Chaukhandi], and beat me with cricket bats and stumps,” says Pawar
in the
FIR. “One of them called up some more boys on his mobile phone, and they raped
my friend one by one.”
This chilling account was the basis for the Noida police’s four arrests late
that very night. However, some of the events described in the FIR may be
fabricated. “The Pawar boy has mentioned wrong locations,” admits Anil Samania,
chief of the Sector 39 police station where the FIR was registered, “The
villagers didn’t kidnap the boy and girl from the mall. The Wagon R was already
in Pushta Parthala Khanjarpur where the boys attacked them.” When TEHELKA
contacted the Pawar family, they refused to comment. Samania attributes the
inaccuracy to Pawar’s “trauma-induced confusion”, but the parents of the
accused allege a conspiracy that the police are in on. “If the first report is
full of lies, what will the rest of the investigation be? It shows they’re
trying to frame our children,” says Nehpal Singh, father of Sharad, one of the
arrested boys. He asks why Pawar, whose father is a police officer in Delhi,
chose to go to Samania’s
Sector 39 police station, and not the one nearest Parthala in Sector 58. “Why
would he do that unless he or his father knew Samania beforehand? Unki setting
hui hogi (they must’ve hatched a plan).” Nehpal, like all the villagers, calls
Pawar the real culprit for allegedly being involved in ‘obscene activities’ in
public, and trying to avenge the violence inflicted on him by charging gangrape
and getting the village boys arrested under the stringent Gangster Act, in
which getting bail is difficult.
Beleaguered :A classroom in the Sri Krishna Inter College, where the 11
arrested boys studied CONSPIRACY THEORIES abound. And in them lies the
dissonance between Noida’s two worlds, which neither accept nor comprehend each
other. “We’re sick of couples coming in cars, lying half-naked and doing
disgusting things next to our homes,” says Satpal Yadav, a village resident.
“Our women are still in purdah, our children still respect their elders. City
people bring gandagi (filth) into our villages.”
Ghadi Chaukhandi held a panchayat a day after the first arrests, declaring they
fully supported their boys and their actions. “The media exploded with reports
that we’re supporting rapists,” says Nehpal, flinging some newspapers on the
table, “How dare they assume we’re monsters who don’t condemn such acts? We
only support their beating up that Pawar boy.” The village residents are
unanimous that Pawar deserved to be beaten up. On the rape charge, they are
divided. “My brother didn’t do it,” says Praveen Yadav, on his way back from
meeting Srikant, another accused, in jail. “I don’t know about the others.”
Each of the parents of the 11 boys maintains that it is possible the girl was
raped, but only by “two or three boys,” and definitely not their son. “If 11
boys raped a girl, I doubt she could’ve been in any condition to go home,”
argues Gurmeet, the aunt of an accused, Tony. “I’ve raised my kids well. I send
them
to school outside the village, to Delhi. They’re good boys. I’m sure my son
didn’t rape anyone,” says Nehpal.
This absolute faith faltered when there were reports of Sanjay Yadav
confessing. According to AK Tripathi, SP City, Noida, “Sanjay has admitted that
the village boys raped the girl by taking turns.” He says the police have
collected samples for DNA testing from the car, taken vaginal swabs, and
examined the girl. But over a week after the crime, the medical and forensic
reports are still not out. In the absence of conclusive evidence, the village
elders insist that false confessions have been taken by force. The same holdup
in investigations allows for rage, shock, and judgement to whirl through the
rest of the national capital region. Most of urban Noida and Delhi is convinced
the boys are rapists.
“These people are not educated, and have regressive ideas about women,” says
Savita Mehta, a lecturer at Noida’s Amity College. “The problem is they are not
trained to respect a woman. Beyond their homes, every woman is accessible.”
Senior Superintendent of Police, Naveen Arora says he cannot comment on Noida’s
rising crime rate, because he’s just been transferred here. In fact, Noida has
seen 14 police chiefs in three years — a result of political meddling and
abysmal performance in investigating recent high-profile cases like the double
murders of Arushi Talwar and Hemraj, and the Nithari serial killings.
Many residents in Noida’s new, gated colonies admit to anxiety about their
neighbours. “My house is wonderful, but it’s strange that I live next to both a
mall and a bunch of backward villages,” says Deepesh Verma, who stays near
Spice World Mall in Sector 25. Verma moved to Noida eight years ago when he
accepted a job in HCL. “Many educated people moved to what we thought was a
thriving industrial hub. Noida has developed in terms of buildings and cars,
but people still think this is a village and they can treat women like
property,” he says.
THE GROCERY shop outside Verma’s house is owned by Deepak Rawal from Ghori
Bachera, a Noida village that was in the papers in 2007 for a police firing
that killed three villagers. Angry people from 10 villages were protesting the
low prices given by the government for their agricultural land. “I wish we
hadn’t sold our land,
To each his own: Though united against the police, Nehpal Yadav says each of
the 11 families is hiring its own lawyer
” says Rawal, a relative of one of the men who died in the police firing, “We
were shortchanged: the government resold the land to private realtors for huge
profits.” With a fleet of trucks and several small businesses, Rawal is perhaps
wealthier than some of those who live in the Sector 25 apartments. “But I’m not
a product of English-medium education, and I don’t believe in this
mall-culture,” he says, “My daughter would never sit and drink in a car with a
man she’s not married to.” Rawal’s 30-year-old brother recalls instances when
he, too, felt the urge to chase away “high society” couples: “Do they not
respect us enough to not bring their obscene habits into our backyards?”
The Noida police now say that two of the arrested boys, Gautam and Omprakash,
have confessed to having earlier raped two women in similar situations.
Tripathi says, “These boys come from rich families with feudal mindsets. Their
minds are rotten.” Bedpal Yadav, Shashikant’s father, says, “Now they’ll start
maligning our boys, but what about the character of Amit Pawar?” As Bedpal’s
voice gets louder, neighbours and relatives gather, some saying that Pawar and
the girl were drinking, others asking why there’s no mention of the other two
boys in the backseat of the same car, and still others spitting fire about
having to deal with character assassination by “a society that has no Indian
culture left in them.” Dinesh Kumar, a resident of neighbouring Junpad village,
calls the police “bade logon ke rakhwale” (protectors of big lords). “More than
40 village children went missing in Nithari, and they didn’t register one FIR,”
he
points out, “But one person from the upper class dies, and they fall over
themselves trying to solve the case.” When more than 100 policemen filled the
small lanes of Ghadi Chaukhandi a day after the alleged rape, Dinesh says a
constable told him that the police “would make sure we get at least half of
your village’s new money by the time the case is closed.”
Noida employs thousands across classes, its allure is its expanse of
possibilities, the spurt of development. Yet, behind the dust of construction
is a clash of identities. Doubt and revulsion fill both the expanding
high-rises and shrinking villages, exposing an ugly gash that’s becoming deeper.
>From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Vol 6, Issue 3, Dated Jan 24, 2009
--- On Wed, 28/1/09, damodar prasad <[email protected]> wrote:
From: damodar prasad <[email protected]>
Subject: [GreenYouth] Re: 17 arrested for Mangalore pub assault
To: [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, 28 January, 2009, 2:09 PM
If Karntaka was not a news at at all, how did the blogger Neelan got all the
links.
These "upper class" kind of arguments was very fashionable, but hundred years
before!!
d.Prasad
On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 12:56 PM, salimtk <[email protected]> wrote:
dear aryan,
i too like pub, drinks and dance and no objection others doing it as well (in
their own ways).
if my mail in any way diverted the manglore issue to something else and
minimize its importance, it's withdrawn. :)
On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 9:24 AM, aryakrishnan ramakrishnan
<[email protected]> wrote:
>From Saleem's mail and in Neelan's blog blurb in Anivar's post,
Mangalore incident and middleclass is mentioned.
I wonder whether that changes the situation. I think each issue has
its value, as it deserves. There could be other causes and issues and
worst cases, but this needs to be taken seriously.
If the attacked women come from middle class or not. It is true that
the media picked it up for its middleclass ethos. But a close scrutiny
proves that media was infact participating in the violence. All the
cameras were ready there at the moment of the attact and all the
channels got good clippings of the attack. But the voyeurs didn't even
have the feeling that they should intervene and stop it.
Infact they need to be considered as criminals along with other
criminals. And we should fight to ban this terror outfit.
Aryan
In Kerala, the state is promoting community policing,day by day. The
news paper reports on this is terrifying. Infact what happens is that
the state is expanding itself by capturing more governmental power by
cameras and spies.
2009/1/28 Anivar Aravind <[email protected]>:
>
> From a Blog Comment By Nalan
>
> http://www.hindu.com/2009/01/27/stories/2009012759421000.htm#
>
> ഇപ്പോള് മാത്രമാണു മംഗലാപുരം സംഭവം ചില മാധ്യമങ്ങളിലെങ്കിലും
> വാര്ത്തയായത്, ഉപരിവര്ഗ്ഗത്തെ ബാധിച്ചപ്പോള് മാത്രം !..
>
> താഴെയുള്ള ലിങ്കുകള് നോക്കൂ - കര്ണ്ണാടകത്തില് ഗുജറാത്ത് മോഡല്
> പരീക്ഷണത്തിനു വേഗത കൂടിയത് ബി.ജെ.പി അധികാരത്തില് വന്നതോടെയാണു.
>
> Women are taking the brunt of 'activism' Moral policing
> http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/08/stories/2008090860790600.htm
>
> College bus stoned; five students and driver hurt
> http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/28/stories/2008122850450100.htm
>
> Cracking down on 'violations of moral code' in Dakshina Kannada
> http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/07/stories/2008090750160100.htm
>
> How Karnataka is becoming Gujarat of the South
> http://communalism.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-karnataka-is-becoming-gujarat-of.html
>
> Two attacked for selling beef: vedike
> http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/02/stories/2008040254390400.htm
>
> Egg on whose face?
> http://www.hindu.com/2007/01/25/stories/2007012503421100.htm
>
> Ban on beef sale draws criticism
> http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/21/stories/2008112155520500.htm
>
> Who will control the vigilantes? Moral policing
> http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/09/stories/2008090954450400.htm
>
> Moral police' caution New Year eve revellers in Mysore
> http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/28/stories/2008122854690500.htm
>
> Karnataka government backs moral policing
> http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080062353
>
> Ban on live bands in Bangalore pubs - Moral policing to stop crimes!
> http://www.zorsebol.com/lifestyle/ban-on-live-bands-in-bangalore-pubs-moral-policing-to-stop-crimes/
>
> Bangalore city pub ransacked by 'moral police'
> http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=86039
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 11:03 AM, salimtk <[email protected]> wrote:
>> the mentioned organizations also stand for indian's 'national' freedom.
>> so first define what's indian's freedom.
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 8:01 AM, Joseph Saluting NSG Commandos......
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>> Friends, how can we prevent these idiots(BJP,RSS,SREERAM SENA,....) from
>>> acting against Indian's Freedom.
>>>
>>> We have to wake up from our sleep otherwise, these fools will kill us in
>>> our sleep...........
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 9:22 PM, damodar prasad <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Seen from a Secular, Modern and Liberal perspectives, except for some
>>>> subtleties in practice, there is no much of a difference between Fascism (
>>>> social fascism as well) , Talibanism and Sanghism. Syntagmatic replacement
>>>> of one by another does not change the meaning.
>>>>
>>>> But if you find these modern values as a problem field, then of course
>>>> the differences have to be accounted.
>>>>
>>>> As sanjeev said, in the post-masjid demolition period sangh parivarism
>>>> best communicates the kind of vandalism and violence that Manglore has
>>>> witnessed.
>>>>
>>>> Talibanism does not evoke any sympathies, I suppose!!
>>>>
>>>> d.Prasad
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 7:12 PM, bharadwaj reshma <[email protected]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Why seek another name when SreeramSena itself is capable of invoking
>>>>> 'terror' in all those who are not placed in advantageous locations ( by
>>>>> name
>>>>> or privileges) ?
>>>>>
>>>>> Perhaps, Sreeramsena or Sangh Parivar doesn't appear 'pre--modern"
>>>>> enough
>>>>> compared to the nonsecular/pre-modern appeal of 'Taliban' in secular
>>>>> commonsense.
>>>>>
>>>>> It tells more about those who speak/ listen than the incident itself.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --- On Tue, 27/1/09, S sanjeev <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> > From: S sanjeev <[email protected]>
>>>>> > Subject: [GreenYouth] Re: 17 arrested for Mangalore pub assault
>>>>> > To: [email protected]
>>>>> > Date: Tuesday, 27 January, 2009, 6:40 PM
>>>>> > dear gladson dungdung,I think it's not just the positing
>>>>> > of a model, but the act
>>>>> > of naming itself that is being contested.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > When Taliban ordered the demolition of Bamian Buddhas in
>>>>> > 2001 did
>>>>> > any human rights activists or journalists describe it
>>>>> > "Sanghparivarism" (courtesy:
>>>>> > nuiman) since it was the best model available at the time,
>>>>> > post-Babri Masjid?
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>>
>>>>> Add more friends to your messenger and enjoy! Go to
>>>>> http://messenger.yahoo.com/invite/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> with regards
>>>
>>> Joseph Peter
>>> Mob:+919745077175
>>> >>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Any responsible politician should be encouraging a home grown Free
> Software industry because it creates the basis for future jobs.
> Learning Windows is like learning to eat every meal at McDonalds.
>
> >
>
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