#India – Tribal Woman raped in bus, helper arrested #Odisha #Vaw

19 Jun 2013 Leave a comment

by kracktivist in Advocacy, Human Rights, Justice, Kractivism, Violence against Women, Women Rights Tags: Bus, Cuttack, Delhi, Gurgaon, India, Kumar, Mayurbhanj, Mayurbhanj district, Mohan Bhagwat, New Delhi, Nitish Kumar, Odisha, Police station, Praveen Kumar, Rape, Supreme Court, Supreme Court of the United States, Woman

Odisha Tribal woman raped in moving bus

PTI : Bhubaneswar/Cuttack, Wed Jun 19 2013, 1

TOP ST

A 25-year-old tribal girl was allegedly raped by the helper of an air-conditioned luxury bus in which she was travelling, police today said. The accused identified as Susanta Hembram has been arrested for allegedly raping the tribal girl, resident of Mayurbhanj district of Odisha, in the moving bus on Sunday night when other passengers were fast asleep, they said.

In her complaint, the victim alleged that Hembram raped her in the rear seat of the private bus en route Jagatpur near Cuttack, between 3 to 3.30 am when there were only few passengers and all of them were asleep, City DCP S Praveen Kumar said.

Hembram is believed to be an acquaintance of the victim,who works as a domestic help in Jagatpur, on the outskirts of Cuttack city. The incident came to light when the girl was rescued by some people at Gatiroutpatna, about 5 km from Cuttack on Cuttack-Jagatsinghpur road yesterday.

The Mahila police station of the city after registering a case sent both the accused and the victim for medical examination on the day. A police scientific team is also assisting the city police in investigating the case.

The State Transport Commissioner Surendra Kumar informed that the permit of the passenger bus in which the crime was committed has been cancelled. “It is one of the primary duties of the bus staff to ensure that the passengers boarding the buses travel safely and reach their destinations unharmed,” Kumar said. Meanwhile, the Private Bus Owners’ Association condemning the incident has demanded that stringent punishment should be given to the bus helper and urged the bus owners to ensure that the credentials of the persons are verified properly before they are recruited to perform duties in the buses plying at night.

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#Deathpenalty- resurfacing in #India – 16mercy petitions rejected in 9 months #WTFnews

13 Apr 2013 2 Comments

by kracktivist in Advocacy, Announcements, Human Rights, Justice, Kractivism, Law, Minority Rights, Political Prisoners, Prison Tags: Ajmal Kasab, Amnesty International, capitalpunishment, Dharampal, India, Indian Penal Code, Pranab Mukherjee, Praveen Kumar, Ramji, Supreme Court, Supreme Court of the United States, Veerappan

Pranab Mukherjee Rejected 16 Mercy Petitions in 9 Months

NEW DELHI | APR 12, 2013, outlook
There was a long delay in deciding mercy pleas by the Presidents, which was also highlighted by the Supreme Court today, but the situation changed when Pranab Mukherjee took charge on July 25 last year, disposing of petitions of 16 condemned prisoners within nine months.The petitions for clemency filed by sandalwood smuggler Veerappan‘s elder brother Gnanaprakash and his aides Simon, Meesekar Madaiah and Bilavendran were rejected by Mukherjee on February 13. The four had then obtained a stay on their execution from the apex court on February 18.

Besides the four, the others whose mercy pleas have been rejected by the President since taking charge are — Suresh, Ramji, Gurmeet Singh, Praveen Kumar, Sonia and her husband Sanjeev, Sundar Singh, Jafar Ali, Dharampal and Saibanna Ningappa Natikar.

Except Dharampal and Natikar, the others had moved the apex court on April 6 and obtained a stay on their execution for four weeks.

Mukherjee also commuted the death sentence of two death row inmates, including Atbir, to life imprisonment.

Atbir was convicted for murder of his step-mother, step-sister and step-brother over property.

Dharampal was convicted for murdering five members of the family of a girl he had raped. He had committed the murders while out on parole in the rape case.

Sonia and Sanjeev were awarded death penalty for killing eight members of her family, including her parents and three children of her brother in 2001.

Gurmeet Singh was convicted of killing 13 of his family members in 1986. Jafar Ali had murdered his wife and five daughters. Suresh and Ramji killed five of their relatives.

Natikar was awarded death penalty for killing his wife and daughter, Praveen was convicted for killing four members of a family in February 1994 and Sundar Singh was convicted for murder of five members of his brother’s family in June 1989.

A recent study by Amnesty International reveals that death penalty resurfaced in India, during 2012, after a long lull in execution at the gallows, while several other nations are opting for penal system free of capital punishment.

Full Story:

In its recent report based on extensive study, Amnesty International has revealed that the death penalty has resurfaced in India in 2012.

Amnesty International claimed in London that the resumption of the death penalty was facilitated by public pressures and political motives in India.

[Jan Erik Wetzel, Death Penalty Advisor at Amnesty International]:
“The resumption of the executions in India is most likely based on a variety of reasons. One of which is public pressure and another one would be political considerations by the government in place.”

[Ravi Prakash, Senior Advocate]:
“Death sentence acts as a deterrent and therefore, death sentence has been retained in the Indian Penal Code and by our legal system. But the court has said that it should be given only in a very rare of the rarest circumstances and not keeping in view that way of the retribution, you are conferring the death sentence on anybody.”

In November, India carried out its first execution since 2004 when the country hanged Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the lone survivor of the militant squad that killed 166 people in the 2008 attacks on the financial capital Mumbai.

Kasab’s execution sparked off celebrations across India.

People burst firecrackers and exchanged sweets among themselves to hail this execution as a justice for the victims of Mumbai attacks.

India had also recently approved a tougher new law to punish sex crimes, including death for repeat rape offenders, after the fatal gang rape of a student in December.

That event sparked unprecedented protests over the treatment of women in the country.

[Abhas Kumar, Student of New Delhi]:
“Death punishment in India is necessary to warn and evoke fear in the minds of people. Criminal activities are increasing. Criminals here are not afraid to commit crimes because they feel that they will be released from jail in two or three days and above all, the trial against them takes a long time.”

The Amnesty International study said that besides India, executions resumed in other countries of the Asia-Pacific region including Japan and Pakistan, after it seemed that they had done away with the punishment.

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IMMEDIATE RELEASE- Noida Police threatening to book activist under NSA #mustshare

28 Feb 2013 1 Comment

by kracktivist in Advocacy, Announcements, Human Rights, Justice, Kractivism, Law, Minority Rights, Press Release Tags: Activism, Ghaziabad, Ghaziabad India, India, National Security Act, Noida, NSA, Praveen Kumar

Noida police illegally picks up activist of workers’ organisation and two citizens – physical and mental harassment going on since last evening
Police is threatening to book them under the National Security Act (NSA)!!
Yesterday evening 10-12 persons from the Noida police arrived at the DTP centre of Naveen Prakash in Ghaziabad and forcibly took Naveen and his employee Raju with them. They made Naveen tocall his friend Tapish Maindola, and activist of the Bigul Mazdoor Dasta and seized him as soon as he arrived there. They took all three with them without informing anybody present where they were taking them. None of the three were allowed to make a call and their phones were seized and switched off by the police.
Their whereabouts were unknown till this morning when it was known that they were being held in the Sector 58 Police Station in Noida and were being physically and mentally harassed since last night.
The police has so far neither lodged an FIR nor charged them of any offence. They are only saying that you are instigating the workers for violence and we will book you under the NSA. Bigul Mazdoor Dasta has been holding street corner meetings in different parts of Noida and distributing a leaflet since February 23 (see link to a copy of the leaflet below).
The leaflet says that the incidents of sporadic violence during the two-day strike were only a reflection of the deep set anger and frustration in the millions of workers in Noida who were being denied even basic rights. It points out that such anarchic explosions of anger are no solutions to the problem and workers must organise themselves in revolutionary unions and political organisations to wage an organised struggle against capitalist exploitation and the state machinery hand-in-glove with the exploiters.
The two citizens seized along with Tapish are his social friends whom the police have caught just because they helped him get a sim card which the police had under illegal surveillance from some time!
It is obvious that the police, as always, are working like henchmen of the factory-owners of Noida. Bigul Mazdoor Dasta has been targeted several times before by the Noida police at the behest of the factory owners who trample even basic labour laws under their feet and rush to smother every voice of protest. It should be recalled that the factory-owners’ associations have been clamouring to book the workers under NSA for the incidents of 21-22 February.
We appeal to all friends in the media, workers organisations and others activists to protest against this illegal detention of Tapish and his innocent friends Naveen Prakash and Raju. We must put pressure on the Noida police to immediately release them and tender an apology.

Phone numbers:
Police Station, Sector 58, Noida – 0120-2580412 / 9454403394
SHO – Inspector Jai Karan Singh – 9871481432
SSP of Gautambudh Nagar, Mr Praveen Kumar – Mobile: 8800900933, Office: 0120- 2444546 / 2549330
Link to the leaflet being distributed in Noida:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/127718058/Noida-Parcha-23-2-13

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The entire village watched silently

21 Jan 2012 2 Comments

by kracktivist in Health Care, Human Rights, Justice, Kractivism, Law, Violence against Women, Women Rights Tags: Bangalore, Deccan Chronicle, Honor killing, Madiga, Murder, Praveen Kumar, Suvarna, Village, Vokkaliga

The place inside the house of Govindaraju where Suvarna (inset) was forced to hang herself to death by her own father.

January 14, 2012 By Praveen Kumar

No one came to Suvarna’s rescue. We were the only three women who saw the entire honour killing. “There were around 10 men, including her father beating her and finally hanging her to death. The entire village watched silently,” recalled 70-year-old Tholasamma, Govindaraju’s mother and his sister-in-law Thayamma.

Tholasamma and her two daughters-in-law, Thayamma and Mangala Gowri, are the main eye witnesses to the honour killing.

“Suvarna kept requesting her father and others to spare her and allow her to go away from the village with Govindaraju. But they only told her she deserved to be killed as she had brought dishonour to their caste by falling in love with a lower caste youth,” said Tholasamma and Thayamma. The three women ran out of the house with the children fearing that they too would be killed. ”

Till date, we do not know where our father-in-law is. Mangala Gowri is taking shelter elsewhere and we have no news about her.My two small children, including a two-year-old, are staying at different places. It has been several days since I have seen them,” added Thayamma, recalling that she had advised Govindaraju to forget Suvarna because of their caste differences.

“He had even left the village two months before the incident. But the girl was not ready to live withou him although she was engaged to someone else. More than the relationship between the two, what mattered to Suvarna’s father was their caste,” she said disdainfully. Her own life has clearly turned upside down since the incident.

I have never seen anyone being killed this way

“I will never ever return to my village where Suvarna was killed in the most barbaric way by her father and others,” said 27-year-old Govindaraju, also called Gundda , pouring his heart out to Deccan Chronicle on Thursday.

The location of the meeting will be kept a secret on his request as he believes his life too is under threat from Suvarna’s father and family.

Govindaraju belongs to the Madiga caste, considered the most oppressed and exploited. Suvarna, who did not care that he belonged to a lower caste while she herself was a Vokkaliga, was in love with him for five years. Although this did not go down well with her family, the couple never dreamed their love affair would meet such a gruesome end.

“Even in the most violent of films I have never come across any person being killed the way Suvarna was. She was dragged by her legs on the concrete road and beaten with wooden logs. She was brought to my house and asked to commit suicide by hanging. When she did not, she was killed by hanging. How can any father kill his daughter this way? I want these people to be punished for Suvarna’s soul to rest in peace. Like all other lovers, we were in love. I agree that we belonged to different castes. But what has her father gained by killing his daughter,” he lamented.

“Had the police acted fast on November 6, when Suvarna was being murdered, she would be alive today. My brother, K Thimappa, had rushed to the Koppa police station and informed the police about the tension in our village while Suvarna and I were being beaten. If the police had reacted fast, she would not have been killed,” he maintained.

Although he managed to escape through the sugarcane fields behind his house, he found it difficult to run as he was badly beaten.

“I had to drag on till I found a lorry transporting sugarcane. I reached the main road with the help of the driver and from there I came to my relative’s house on the outskirts of Bengaluru. If I had not escaped, I too would have been killed the same day,” he shuddered, unwilling to emerge from hiding as he is certain that will be as good as signing his own death warrant.