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Guwahati molestation: debate on safety for women rages on

July 14, 2012

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Guwahati, July 14: Five days after a teenaged girl was molested by a mob in Guwahati, nine of the 13 accused are still roaming free. The police have been able to arrest only four people so far.

The incident has once again stepped up the 'safety for women' debate in the country. It also raises other questions as to how can we prevent incidents like Guwahati from happening again and also whether there is no fear of the law in India.

Speaking to CNN-IBN, Team Anna member Kiran Bedi said, "It's a case for intelligent policing. Secondly, it's a case for better deployment, better people at the right places, people who know policing. And third, co-opt people in peace time. Unless you co-opt civil defence, home guards, resident associations, market associations and even have cameras outside the pubs which means a case for co-option."

BJP leader Smriti Irani said, "We've become a nation of headline chasers. Our outrage lasts till the headline lasts. We forget that girls molested and sexual harassment on the streets of this nation everyday."

Human rights lawyer Vrinda Grover said stronger laws against sexual harassment and molestation were required in the country. "All of them are bailable offences. We have been pleading with the Home Ministry to please pass the Criminal Law amendment to change the law relating to sexual assault. It is not on the priority of the Home Ministry."

The incident, which has sparked a nationwide outrage finally forced the Assam government into action. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi appointed a special task force to look into the matter. The Chief Minister talked tough on the incident saying, "No one has the right to molest anyone."

"I have asked the police to keep a vigil on the anti-social elements," said Gogoi.

A three-member National Commission for Women team will also be reaching Guwahati to condict a probe. Meanwhile, across Guwahati, posters of the 13 accused were put up to help the police nab them.

Home Minister P Chidambaram had exhorted the state government to take action.

The Deputy Commissioner of Kamrup District, Ashutosh Agnihotri, too said that strict action will be taken against the accused. He, however, admitted that the police could have acted faster. "The police could have been a little faster to reach the spot. I have asked the SP to inquire into the delay," he said.

The Assam Police has managed to identify only 13 of the accused and arrest only four of them, almost five days after the incident. The victim had gone to celebrate her friend's birthday at a city bar where a man passed an obscene remark at her. This led to an altercation in the pub whose management asked them to leave. Once outside, the man followed her and passersby joined him.

The entire incident was shot on camera by a News Live cameraperson and is now viral on the Internet. Upon being questioned on the ethics behind shooting a molestation incident live and airing it, the channel said they did it "in public interest".

Syed Zarir Hussain, the Managing Editor of the TV channel, said, "Had we stopped rolling the camera, these molesters would not have been arrested. What we did was in public interest. On the night this incident happened, we showed only the molesters. We took a call to show the incident the next day as we realised that the molesters would not have be arrested. Whatever we did, we did for public interest and it is because we showed the video that four people have been arrested."

"The civil rights group in Assam had been insensitive to the incident," he added.

He further said, "The police was informed the moment this incident happened. There were two camerapersons and two people cannot take on a mob. So do not blame the media.

"How can the cameraperson be blamed for the accused looking at the camera and smiling?" he asked. "The serious point is that not a single group has come out on the street to protest against the incident. The media launched the campaign..."

He went on to add, "There were lots of people shooting the incident on mobile phones. The TV camera was ours. We were at a strategic location and we reached there. The question of ethical and unethical comes later."

The Assam DGP, Jayanta N Chaudhary, however, has promised action against the accused. He said, "The girl had gone to celebrate a friend's birthday... There (at the bar) they had a fight and the management asked them to leave as they were creating a ruckus over there... they came out and some hooligans saw her and tried to take advantage of her... She was assaulted but is not hospitalised... Whatever is there in the law books, we will do accordingly thanks to the coverage of media... They have been a great help."

Crime rate against women second highest in Assam: NCRB

The National Crime Records Bureau's NCRB latest statistics revealed that Assam has become one of most vulnerable places in the country in terms of crime against woman.

- According to the latest NCRB figures, the rate of crime against women in Assam was the second highest in the country in 2011 with 36.6 per cent.

-Assam's rate represents a jump from the 33.5 in 2010.

-The state of Tripura, which topped the chart in the category, was only a marginal 0.1 per cent ahead last year.

-Tripura has reported the highest rate of crime against women at 37.0 during the year 2011 as compared to 18.9 crime rate at the national level

-The NCRB report further said, There were 2, 28, 650 incidents of crimes against women in the country out of which Assam registered 11, 503 incidents.


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News Network
January 13,2020

Jan 13: For the first time in years, the government of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is playing defense. Protests have sprung up across the country against an amendment to India’s laws — which came into effect on Friday — that makes it easier for members of some religions to become citizens of India. The government claims this is simply an attempt to protect religious minorities in the Muslim-majority countries that border India; but protesters see it as the first step toward a formal repudiation of India’s constitutionally guaranteed secularism — and one that must be resisted.

Modi was re-elected prime minister last year with an enhanced majority; his hold over the country’s politics is absolute. The formal opposition is weak, discredited and disorganized. Yet, somehow, the anti-Citizenship Act protests have taken hold. No political party is behind them; they are generally arranged by student unions, neighborhood associations and the like.

Yet this aspect of their character is precisely what will worry Modi and his right-hand man, Home Minister Amit Shah. They know how to mock and delegitimize opposition parties with ruthless efficiency. Yet creating a narrative that paints large, flag-waving crowds as traitors is not quite that easy.

For that is how these protests look: large groups of young people, many carrying witty signs and the national flag. They meet and read the preamble to India’s Constitution, into which the promise of secularism was written in the 1970’s.

They carry photographs of the Constitution’s drafter, the Columbia University-trained economist and lawyer B. R. Ambedkar. These are not the mobs the government wanted. They hoped for angry Muslims rampaging through the streets of India’s cities, whom they could point to and say: “See? We must protect you from them.” But, in spite of sometimes brutal repression, the protests have largely been nonviolent.

One, in Shaheen Bagh in a Muslim-dominated sector of New Delhi, began simply as a set of local women in a square, armed with hot tea and blankets against the chill Delhi winter. It has now become the focal point of a very different sort of resistance than what the government expected. Nothing could cure the delusions of India’s Hindu middle class, trained to see India’s Muslims as dangerous threats, as effectively as a group of otherwise clearly apolitical women sipping sweet tea and sharing their fears and food with anyone who will listen.

Modi was re-elected less than a year ago; what could have changed in India since then? Not much, I suspect, in most places that voted for him and his party — particularly the vast rural hinterland of northern India. But urban India was also possibly never quite as content as electoral results suggested. India’s growth dipped below 5% in recent quarters; demand has crashed, and uncertainty about the future is widespread. Worse, the government’s response to the protests was clearly ill-judged. University campuses were attacked, in one case by the police and later by masked men almost certainly connected to the ruling party.

Protesters were harassed and detained with little cause. The courts seemed uninterested. And, slowly, anger began to grow on social media — not just on Twitter, but also on Instagram, previously the preserve of pretty bowls of salad. Instagram is the one social medium over which Modi’s party does not have a stranglehold; and it is where these protests, with their photogenic signs and flags, have found a natural home. As a result, people across urban India who would never previously have gone to a demonstration or a political rally have been slowly politicized.

India is, in fact, becoming more like a normal democracy. “Normal,” that is, for the 2020’s. Liberal democracies across the world are politically divided, often between more liberal urban centers and coasts, and angrier, “left-behind” hinterlands. Modi’s political secret was that he was that rare populist who could unite both the hopeful cities and the resentful countryside. Yet this once magic formula seems to have become ineffective. Five of India’s six largest cities are not ruled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in any case — the financial hub of Mumbai changed hands recently. The BJP has set its sights on winning state elections in Delhi in a few weeks. Which way the capital’s voters will go is uncertain. But that itself is revealing — last year, Modi swept all seven parliamentary seats in Delhi.

In the end, the Citizenship Amendment Act is now law, the BJP might manage to win Delhi, and the protests might die down as the days get unmanageably hot and state repression increases. But urban India has put Modi on notice. His days of being India’s unifier are over: From now on, like all the other populists, he will have to keep one eye on the streets of his country’s cities.

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Agencies
August 1,2020

New Delhi, Aug 1: Rajya Sabha MP and former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh has died in Singapore where he was undergoing treatment.

Amar Singh, 64, had undergone kidney transplant in 2011 and was not keeping well for a long time.

“Saddened to know about the death of senior leader and parliamentarian Amar Singh,” Defence Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted.

Earlier in the day, the former Samajwadi leader had posted messages on Twitter, paying tributes to Bal Gangadhar Tilak on his 100th death anniversary and also wishing people on Eid.

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Agencies
January 26,2020

Guwahati, Jan 26: Four powerful grenade explosions--three in Dibrugarh and one in Charaideo districts--rocked Assam Sunday morning as the country celebrated Republic Day, police said.

In Dibrugarh district, an explosion took place at Graham Bazar and another beside a gurudwara on A T Road, both under Dibrugarh police station.

Another explosion rocked the oil town of Duliajan whose details are still awaited, police said.

Another explosion rocked Teok Ghat under Sonari police station of Charaideo district, they said.

Senior officials have rushed to the explosion sites and details of casualty are awaited, police added.

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