(The Telegraph
October 16, 2006)
Gujarat or UP, riot victim’s a pariah
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Mau, Oct. 15: Fifteen-year-old Fatima Parveen and mother Shamima were gangraped by rioters in Uttar Pradesh’s Mau, but it might just as well have happened in Gujarat.
A year to the day after the attack, Fatima and Shamima (both names changed) are scarred by the knowledge that riot victims can be as much of a band of pariahs to Mulayam Singh Yadav’s police as they were to Narendra Modi’s.
The parallel with Gujarat was drawn by Allahabad High Court. “The facts are reminiscent of what happened in Gujarat when the Supreme Court had interfered and ordered a retrial of cases after transfer (out of the state),” Justice Barkat Ali Zaidi said at the hearing of the duo’s petition on September 21 this year.
The judge referred the case to the CBI director, saying the police were “trying to protect the accused”.
Both communities had suffered in the month- long violence, sparked on October 14 by a dispute over the use of loudspeakers during Dussehra festivities.
The riots left 10 people dead, over a hundred injured and property worth Rs 500 crore in ruins in the town 250 km from Lucknow.
The attack on Fatima and Shamima came on the second day.
“It was October 15, around noon. A mob of about a hundred stormed our lane, armed with knives, lathis and hockey sticks. My father took us to the home of our mother’s family in the town’s Alinagar area. The mob followed us,” Fatima said.
The mob barged into the house and beat up every- body. “They tore off my clothes. When my brother intervened, he was assau-lted.”
The attackers were neighbours and Fatima can name all the eight persons she says raped her: Sudarshan of Chhoti Rahzania, Chhotey Lal, Manoj of Barey Rahzania, Ram Prasad, Om Chandra, Budhram, Ram Chandra and Triveni Sunder.
Three others — Rajesh Driver, Kedar and Khadthu —raped Shamima, says the FIR lodged at Mau’s Kotwali police station in December.
The mob left after looting everything in the house.
On March 30, hearing Fatima’s petition demanding prompt police action, Justice Vinod Prasad of Allaha- bad High Court had said: “The rape victim is runn- ing from pillar to post to get her statement recorded by the magistrate, but the investi- gating officer is not turn- ing up (at the magistrate’s court).”
The judge directed “the senior superintendent of police (SSP), Mau, to transfer the investigation from Kotwali police station to any other police station” and “record her statement”.
This wasn’t done and by the time Fatima moved court again, Justice Prasad had been transferred.
Justice Zaidi, who took up the hearing, noted that only one person named in the FIR had been arrested.
“The matter is, therefore, referred to the director of CBI for investigation and the director of CBI is asked to do the needful,” he said, asking the SSP to provide security to the women.
The SSP, Ashutosh Pandey, said the case files had been transferred to the CBI and arrangements for security were being made.