FIR lodged under new anti-rape law
BIJAPUR: An FIR lodged by Bijapur police on 1st November, charging security forces with rape is the first time the section, introduced into law in 2013 to prosecute rape by armed forces, has been used in Chhattisgarh.
The large-scale violence and looting was reported as taking place between 19 and 24 October 2015, when 200 men in uniform undertook an anti-maoist military operation in the villages of Pegdapalli, Chinnagellur, Peddagellur, Burgicheru, and Gundam,
Sparsely populated with far flung hamlets of mud, tiled and thatched homes, interspersed between tracts of jungle, freshlyharvested paddy fields, streams and low mountains, the 5 villages lie in an area that the state describes as Maoist-held territory, which it is currently trying to militarily reclaim.
They are 18 to 25 kilometres from the nearest road and a CRPF camp.
This is a region racked by a decade-long conflict between the state and Maoist rebels, which has claimed nearly 8000 lives in this period. In these villages, the fear of violence and death stalk combatant and civilian alike.
Since no investigator or official has visited the villages so far, the scale of the violence remains unknown.
HT is reporting a partial account of the violence (see BOX) based on some of the interviews it conducted in 3 villages last week, assisted by a female Gondi translator.
In Peddagellur village, the aunt of a teen who reported being gangraped said, “Four of us were grazing our cows that morning when the force (a generic term used by villagers to refer to police as well as paramilitary personnel) arrived and started chasing us. There must have been 15-20 men.”
Holding her head in her hands, she said, “They beat us up severely, with sticks and rifles. I was hit on my buttocks, thighs and legs. Our cows were running. We fled scared, but they had surrounded her (the teen). Later that day, Sodi Lakshmi and I found her. She was badly bruised and swollen. Both of us brought her back home. I applied jungle medicine to her body.”
Fact-finding reports by 3 different groups (of women activists, Adivasi Congressmen including the area’s legislators, and Sarva Adivasi Samaj, an Adivasi civil society group) who visited the area in November contain additional accounts violence:
Over 15 women reported to the teams that their lower clothing was lifted, and they were threatened with sexual violence including mirchi (chilli) being pushed into their vaginas. Others reported being stripped and chased.
Women reported being chased out of their homes, occupied by security forces. In some instances, security men had removed their clothes and told the women they could come and sleep inside with them.
Women said even those holding infants were beaten and their hair pulled. Some children were also beaten and their clothes removed. When women tried to intervene, they were also beaten, they told the fact-finding teams.
Several villagers reported looting of money ranging from 500 to 27,000 rupees from their homes.
They also reported destruction of possessions like clothes, cycles and utensils, and looting of chickens, and essentials like rice, pulses and cooking oil, which the security forces ate during the days they stayed in the villages.