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| Anti Modi demonstration in London |
By Sajjad Shoukar
Since the
fundamentalist government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime
Minister Narendra Modi came to power, various extremist policies have continued
unabated by the Indian rulers. In this respect, rising number of crime against
women, especially rapes are attributable to religious fanaticism and lack of
law enforcement. In this recent past, the brutal gang rape and murder of an
eight-year-old girl Asifa Bano in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) sparked
protests in the State of Jammu and Kashmir and inside India, including
criticism of the human rights organizations. Investigations disclosed that
Hindu officials, legislatures, police officers and even the persons of Hindu
Temple were involved in this cruel act of rape and murder. Details revealed:
“Sanji Ram, a 60-year-old retired government officer planned the crime with the
help of police officers Surender Verma, Anand Dutta, Tilak Raj and Mr
Khajuria.” According to the BBC, “Mr Pujwala…told the BBC, His wife, Naseema
Bibi, sat beside him, faintly crying while repeatedly murmuring Asifa…Mr
Pujwala belongs to a community of Muslim nomadic shepherds…The crime has
shocked the community, exposing the fault lines between Hindu-majority Jammu
and the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley in a sharply divided state. Police have
arrested eight men, including a retired government official, four police
officers and a juvenile in connection with Asifa’s death. However, the arrests
sparked protests in Jammu-lawyers tried to stop police entering the court to
file a charge sheet and two ministers from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) attended a rally in support of the accused. The BJP rules
the state in a coalition with the regional People’s Democratic Party (PDP).”
Even, Maharashtrad Navnirman Sena
(MNS) Chief Raj Thackeray condemned the BJP again when he claimed that the
party was a party that supported rapists. He elaborated: “The BJP was creating
an atmosphere of
poison in the country…this girl Asifa was such a small child…she
did not know anything about religion, and she was assaulted and the BJP is
publicly backing the rapists in the crime… the BJP was trying to engineer riots
between Hindus and Muslims to create riots to benefit in the elections.” After
Asifa’s tragedy, in Unnao district, Uttar Pradesh, a 16-year-old girl has
pointed out on April 10, this year that BJP lawmaker Kuldeep Singh Sengar and
his brother Atul Singh Sengar raped her, last year. The father of the minor
girl, who was fighting for justice was arrested and died while in custody. The
postmortem report of her father listed multiple abrasions near abdomen,
buttocks, thighs, above and below knee joints and arms. It can also be caused
by blunt trauma to the abdomen or a knife or gunshot wound. It is of particular
attention that under the caption, “BJP ideology believes in raping Muslim
women”, The Guardian reported: “Indian activist and writer whose article in The
Guardian calling India “republic of fear” has been shared thousands of times
has said that rape culture under Narendra Modi’s government is celebrated by
ministers and activists belonging to extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Amrit Wilson, a writer on race wrote for The
Guardian as Modi arrived in Britain to take part in the Commonwealth
summit…crimes against women in India, including two violent rapes in Kathua in
the Indian Held Jammu and Kashmir (IHK) and Unnao in Uttar Pradesh. The twin
rape cases have particularly rocked India and Modi was greeted by thousands of
protestors in London who condemned his government for doing nothing about the
culture of rape.”
In 1989 when new Intifada (Uprising)
started in the Indian Held Kashmir, Indian security forces have been using rape
as a weapon against the Kashmiri women of all ages. Under the BJP rule of Modi,
these shameful acts against the Kashmir ladies have been accelerated. Nevertheless,
thousands of rape cases of Kashmiri women in the Indian Controlled have
reported not only by foreign media, but also by Indian media. Reliable sources
suggest that there are 500-600 individual rape cases occur in the Indian
Occupied state of Jammu and Kashmir per year. Most of these cases have not been
mentioned by India media, police and court.
The raped women and teenager girls
and their families cannot afford this social stigma, despite the fact that
these incidents are forced upon, while mostly, such rapes are committed on gun
point by the Indian occupying forces which have impunity through black laws
such as the Armed Forces Special Power Act and the Public Safety Act. Amnesty
International and other global rights groups have said that since Indian Army
and Para-Military Forces have the unlimited power and authority to do anything
against the poor people of Kashmir, during raids and house searching operations
in the Indian Occupied Kashmir, they also take out women for
interrogation-purposes and then rape them at gun point. Notably, in the decade
of 1990, the Indian Army and other forces committed rapes in a record number.
Kashmir Media Service and Kashmir Liberation cell disclosed, “There are over
11000 reported rape cases in IOK at the hands of Indian Army and Central
Reserve Police from 1990 to 2016.”
Surprisingly, India claims itself a
secular state and the largest democracy of the world. But, in reality, the
ideology of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) is the genesis of Hindu terrorism,
having co-relationship with it, the main fault lines of India’s politics is based
upon the discriminatory system of caste and religion. Since the leader of the
ruling party BJP Modi became Prime Minister of India, various developments
like, persecution of minorities even of lower cast-Hindus, forced conversions
of other religious minorities into Hindus, ban on beef and cow slaughter,
inclusion of Hindu religious books in curriculum, creation of war-like
situation with Pakistan etc. clearly show that encouraged by the Hindu
fundamentalist outfits such as BJP, RSS VHP, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena,
including other similar parties have been promoting religious and ethnic
chauvinism in India by propagating ideology of Hindutva. Rape and assault on
women are also part of the Hindutva. However, rape is becoming one of fastest
growing social evils in India. Besides, Indian women, foreigners, tourists and
Hindu pilgrims from other countries also faced such a plight. In January, last
year, five men were arrested in Kolkata and charged for raping a Japanese
tourist lady.
In the recent past, a German tourist claimed that two men confined her in a room and raped her, just weeks after the rape and murder of an Irish woman in Goa. And few weeks ago, a 28-year-old Irish woman was raped and murdered in the popular tourist state of Goa.
In a notorious case, five years ago,
15-year old British schoolgirl Scarlett Keeling was raped and left to die on a
beach in the tourist resort of Goa. In another shameful case, in June 3, 2013,
a US national was gang-raped by three men in a truck in Manali. Taking
cognizance of sexual assaults on ladies, British and Swiss governments
including those of other countries have already issued instructions to women
tourists to refrain from going to India due to growing risks of insecurity by
the Indian officials. In this connection, The New York wrote in June 10, 2013,
“Visits to India by female tourists dropped 35 percent in the first three
months of this year compared with the same period last year. That three-month
period came after the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi in
December…every day women face the harassment and intimidation in India.” Nonetheless,
taking note of the rape cases under the BJP-led government, many bloggers on
Social Media and WhatsSapp remarked that name of the Bharatiya Janata Party
must be changed, calling it Balatkari (Rapist) Party.
