India: Activists Slam Police for Abandoning Victim of Mob Assault

Jhumur Deb
2016.09.09
Guwahati, India
160909-IN-protest-1000 Protestors in Tinsukia, in northeast India’s Assam state, demonstrate against the killing by a mob of a man accused of rape in neighboring Nagaland state, March 8, 2015.
AFP

Rights activists in northeast India’s Assam state Friday criticized local police for abandoning a deaf and mute homeless woman in the streets after a mob publicly assaulted her last week.

The 30-year-old victim, whose identity was not disclosed, was abused, stripped and beaten by a crowd on Sept. 3 in Tinsukia district, some 380 km (236 miles) from state capital Guwahati, after some locals suspected her of behaving like a kidnapper, police said.

The incident is the latest in a string of similar cases of “mob-justice” in the state, where crowds gang up on and publicly assault people based on unfounded suspicions of being involved in crimes or immoral behavior.

The attack on the homeless woman came to light on Tuesday when a video recording of the attack was leaked to local news channels. The blurred visuals showed the woman, half naked and tied to a pole, being thrashed by about 10 people who repeatedly referred to her as a “Bangladeshi.”

Police said the woman was an Indian national, yet many Assamese resent the presence of undocumented people who cross over from nearby Bangladesh.

While speaking to BenarNews on Friday, district Superintendent of Police M.D. Mahanta said locals became suspicious of the woman, after she was caught peeping inside some homes in the Borguri area, where some children had recently gone missing.

Two people had been arrested in connection with the assault and investigations were ongoing to identify other culprits, he said.

“After rescuing her, we handed the victim over to a local NGO called Ujala House. But three days later, on Sept. 6, the NGO brought her back to us, saying they did not have the resources to keep her. The woman is a gypsy with no home and no family. So we left her at the slums near the railway tracks, where she is usually seen hanging around,” Mahanta said.

Activists came down heavily on the police and the NGO for leaving the woman out in the streets.

“It is callous and irresponsible of the police as well as the NGO to mete out such treatment to a victim of a mob attack, more so when we know she is poor, homeless and physically disabled. Her case is just another burning example of state actors failing to provide protection to a hapless woman,” Malini Mahanta, a leading women’s rights activist in Assam, told BenarNews.

Repeated phone calls to the office of the Ujala House NGO in Tinsukhia went unanswered.

Similar attacks

Justice meted out by mobs is not a new phenomenon in Assam, but rights activists warn that it is growing.

Four years ago, a teenage girl was molested and manhandled by a group of about 30 men in full public view as she stepped out of a bar in Guwahati. Many of the accused were subsequently arrested after a video recording of the assault appeared on news channels, triggering a national uproar.

In 2007, a tribal girl who came to the state capital to take part in an anti-government protest was stripped naked and assaulted by a mob in broad daylight.

A public interest litigation filed by a Guwahati-based lawyer in 2013 revealed that about 130 people had been killed by unruly mobs across Assam between 2002 and 2013.

In many cases, victims have been beheaded, raped and force-fed human excreta by raging mobs after being branded a witch or a Bangladeshi, according to local news reports.

Government statistics show that 93 cases of witch-hunting were reported in the state between 2010 and 2015. In these 93 incidents, 77 people, including 35 women, were killed and 60 injured.

Police ‘not sensitized’

“We are witnessing a steep increase in incidents of such nature in Assam. This kind of community violence can’t be considered legitimate or tolerable. Government forces must take stern action against those who indulge in mob violence and set an example once and for all,” Anurita Hazarika of the Women’s Rights Organization (North East Network) told BenarNews.

However, the state’s police has not been sensitized enough to handle such incidents, she said.

“In most such instances we have found that the police did not even consider them to be a crime. Take the latest case for example. Had the police been trained to be sensitive, they would have arrested all the suspects on the spot and found a suitable home for the victim,” Hazarika said.

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