Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | M | Manavi Newsletter

Sexual violence as a weapon in Gujarat genocide.

Article Excerpt
State and police complicity in the genocide

Initially, the Godhra train tragedy was touted as the trigger for the riots that spread like wildfire all across Gujarat. However, it quickly became clear that the carnage was planned well before the Godbra train tragedy and that the anti-Muslim hate propaganda increased in the six months prior to February 2002. (1) The People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), one of India's premiere human rights organizations, said in its report on the violence in Gujarat, "The whole intent of the pogrom has been to reduce Muslims to second class citizens in their own country." (1) The report states that the organizers of the genocide tapped into a seam of hatred that had been systematically cultivated against the minority Muslim community over many years.

The People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) also voiced the same sentiment insisting that the violence witnessed in Gujarat was not perpetrated by Hindus, but that an agency was responsible for it. According to Renu Khanna of the PUCL, the organization does not believe that the riots were "Hindu-Muslim riots" but were completely engineered by the chief minister, VHP, Bajrang Dal and RSS. (2) Another report by the Citizens' Initiative, a coalition of over twenty-five NGOs that recorded testimony of sexual violence in Gujarat, cites that members of the Bajrang Dal and VHP were distributing arms in rural areas as early as six months before the violence began. (3) Similarly, Human Rights Watch reported that "in the days that followed February 28, hundreds of youths brandishing swords, daggers, axes, and iron rods were seen shouting 'Jai Shri Ram' and roaming roads lined with gutted shops and littered with burned trucks, rickshaws, and other vehicles." (4)

Sexual violence and police complicity

The report sponsored by the Citizens' Initiative contains more than 30 pages of testimonials from female victims and eyewitnesses to the violence based on investigations conducted at the end of March. Among its findings is the fact that crimes against women have been grossly underreported and under-recorded by the police. The report states:

"Among the women surviving in relief camps, are many who have suffered the most bestial forms of sexual violence--including rape, gang rape, mass rape, stripping, insertion of objects into their...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!