‘The world is watching’
Edmontonians hold candlelight vigil for young girl raped and killed in India
A group of Edmontonians want the government of India to know that the world is watching how it responds to the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Kashmiri girl.
More than 200 people attended a candlelight vigil in Mill Woods Sunday evening for Asifa Bano, whose rape and subsequent killing earlier this year has made headlines around the world and drawn attention to the prevalence of sexual violence in India.
After learning about what happened to Asifa, “for at least a few nights I wasn’t able to sleep properly,” said Gagan Dhillion, a 25-year-old Edmonton truck driver who helped to organize Sunday ’s event.
“I shared (the story with friends), and they said we should stand up against this thing,” he said.
According to police, Asifa was kidnapped in January while grazing her family’s horses near a forest. She was sedated and raped over a period of three days before being killed at a Hindu temple, where her attackers allegedly strangled her and stuck her in the head with a stone. Police have charged one youth and seven men, including four police officers.
“Being a mother of three, this kind of stuff resonates,” said Shelley Puri, who helped organize speakers for the vigil — including two MLAs, non-governmental groups and a city police officer.
The vigil came together unexpectedly earlier this month. Cameron Jones, a 29-year-old provincial government employee, learned of the case and also suffered sleepless nights thinking about Asifa’s horrific death.
“I was so unsettled by it,” he said. Jones is engaged to an Indian woman and has twice travelled to the country, but he’d never before interacted with Edmonton’s South Asian community. He got in touch with the organizers of a rally for Asifa in Surrey, B.C., and learned that another Edmontonian — Dhillion — had reached out to them looking for help organizing the event.
They met last Saturday at a Starbucks in Mill Woods, and got to work organizing until their laptops and cellphones ran out of battery power. Soon, news of the event was travelling on social media and flyers were being distributed in local Gurdwaras. Haweli restaurant covered the cost of event insurance and paid for materials.
The case has inflamed religious tensions in India — Asifa was Muslim and the alleged attackers have been accused of targeting her as a way to drive her family and other members of the Bakarwal tribe from Kashmir.
Some claim the perpetrators claim they have been framed and there have been rallies in support of the alleged attackers.
The Edmonton event aimed to steer clear of such tensions, Jones said. The goal is to send a message to the Indian government.
“The Indian government, those that are prosecuting these men, need to know that the world is watching,” he said.