This is a follow-up to Village Council Orders Gang-Rape.
NEW DELHI: The village elder delivered his judgment shortly before midnight. The woman had sinned. She was a Hindu who’d had a relationship with a married Muslim outsider. To restore village honor, he said, she needed to be punished.
The sentence he settled on: rape by her neighbors. Yeah, that'll do it. I wonder how honorable the village feels now?
A crowd of 300 people watched the trial on Jan. 20, and at least one captured the proceedings on his mobile phone. On the headman’s orders, the 20-year-old woman was untied from a tree in the remote Indian village, taken to a thatched shed and raped repeatedly over about six hours, according to a police report of the victim’s testimony. Among her alleged attackers: the headman himself.
“These people do not fear the police, they fear their own tribal leaders,” said Ajoy Menon, a police constable in the Birbhum district in West Bengal state, where the rape occurred. “Most of them don’t abide by the same laws you and I do. For many of them, their leaders are the law.”
The latest Indian rape case to reverberate around the world reveals the workings of an informal justice system that sets rules and imposes sanctions for many of the 800 million rural Indians. In the world’s largest democracy, village councils rule on issues including marriage, property and women’s attire. Many reinforce a religious caste-based system that helps block India’s most marginalized from escaping illiteracy and a life lived on $2 a day at most.
Police in Birbhum say they also have mobile phone footage of the rape. Three officers stood guard outside the victim’s room at the hospital where she was being treated a week after the assault.
Thirteen men are in custody and have been denied bail. Their lawyer says they will plead not guilty. In the village, six residents denied the woman was raped.
“Our village leader, he’s like a father figure to us,” said Mollika Todo, a female villager whose relative has been arrested for the rape.
A 2011 Supreme Court ruling that ordered state governments to prosecute members of village councils who take the law into their own hands hasn’t ended this parallel justice system. About 90 percent of rural disputes are resolved in this way because of the lack of judges and courts in remote areas, said Kripa Ananthpur, an assistant professor at Chennai-based Madras Institute of Development Studies who researches informal governments.
In parts of India where communities are segregated by caste and religion, people have paid with their lives for ignoring local custom. Those who flout traditional mores barring marriage outside of their community or religion can face social ostracism, including eviction from their village, by order of the councils.
About 1,000 people, mainly women, are murdered in honor killings every year, many ordered by village councils that ruled the victim had brought shame on family or clan, according to the Honour Based Violence Awareness Network, a London-based research organization that fights honor killings around the world.
In Birbhum district, at least three women were stripped, beaten and paraded for several miles along a country road on orders of a village council in 2010. Their alleged transgression: having relationships with men from neighboring communities.
Some council leaders have issued bans on women wearing jeans and carrying mobile phones, according to local media reports. In a 2012 incident that grabbed headlines nationally, a village chief blamed the consumption of chow mein for the rise in rape cases in Haryana, saying it caused hormonal imbalances that led to rape, the Times of India reported.
“Modernity, the perception of western values, it’s encroaching on the villagers who are clutching at their ancient, cultural identity,” said Biplab Mukherjee, a coordinator at the Kolkata-based group Masum, which researches police abuse.
Subalpur, where the rape took place, is 125 miles north of Kolkata, accessible only by a narrow, bumpy dirt road. About 400 people live in a warren of mud-brick homes, many with adjoining pens with cows or water buffalo.
The rape victim had recently returned from a trip to New Delhi that had changed her, said Sunil Murmur, a man from a neighboring settlement.
She came back speaking Hindi, in a region where Bengali is the main dialect, Murmur said. A visit to her hut on Jan. 26 showed Bollywood posters adorning one wall, name-brand creams and imported snacks sitting on a shelf affixed to another wall, and glass bangles hanging from a rod.
“Her family denied the affair, but she continued to misbehave,” said Murmur. “So the village chief decided she would be punished.”
Villagers agreed on the events leading up to the punishment. After being dragged out of her hut and tried in a dusty 40-square-foot clearing in the center of the village, she and the Muslim man were fined a total of 50,000 rupees ($800) by the local council.
The man’s family paid the fine and he fled the area. His wife said she hasn’t seen him since.
The woman’s family was too poor to pay her share of the fine, even when it was reduced to 2,000 rupees.
The village head then gave the order to “Go have fun with her,” according to the police report obtained by Bloomberg News.
It took the woman almost two days to escape after the rape, according to the police report. Neighbors prevented her from leaving the village and allegedly threatened to burn down the family home if they spoke to the district authorities. After reaching a police station in Labhpur, about a 25-minute drive from Subalpur, she was sent to a hospital.
Amal Karmar, a doctor who treated the victim, said in a Jan. 25 interview that her injuries clearly indicated multiple rape. The woman was in stable condition, he said.
The hospital has barred public entry to the gynecological ward where she is being treated. Two of her brothers are in police custody for their own safety, according to two police officers who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the case.
The hospital and police denied requests to interview the family.
Indian law prohibits identification of a rape victim. Bloomberg News has not used the victim’s name nor that of the Muslim man and his wife.
In nearby villages, residents condemned the rape. “What the leader has ordered is unacceptable,” said S.K. Chowdhury, 52, a Labhpur shopkeeper. “There’s nothing wrong with village councils, but there is something wrong when one person uses his power to do something as terrible as this.”
Sheikh Jogral, who owns a fish shop in Chowhatta village, where the Muslim man lived, said it’s better to take disputes to local leaders, who offer swift justice. Elected politicians and police don’t understand the village way of life and may be corrupt, he said.
“Normally we prefer to settle things among ourselves, among our own people,” said Jogral. “We don’t have any connection to the local government, ministers or police if we can avoid it.”
Village leadership is usually passed on from father to son and tends to remain within the family until there are no more male offspring, said Ananthpur, the Madras institute assistant professor. The village then meets to appoint a new leader, who will probably come from the dominant caste and have some education.
“Some have now included women in the councils while others have appointed lawyers as their village leaders,” said Ananthpur. “This particular example is horrendous. I’ve never seen anything this bad.”
Two nights after the rape, the two officers said, policemen advanced down a path toward Subalpur to arrest the suspects. As they approached, arrows flew out of the darkness, hitting one policeman in the shoulder.
Officers called for reinforcements and pushed on toward the village. This time they were blocked by a makeshift barrier of cattle carts, trees and bamboo sticks. After dismantling the barrier, they were hit by a barrage of bricks.
The villagers were finally overwhelmed by sheer numbers, and the suspects were arrested. But later two trucks filled with men from Subalpur pulled up outside the police station and demanded that the suspects be released. The threat diminished only after police called officials from the All India Trinamool Congress party, which rules West Bengal, and asked them to intervene.
Phiroj Kumar Pal, a public prosecutor in the district, said all 13 men arrested for the rape have confessed to the crime in writing. The Supreme Court on Jan. 24 ordered a local judge to investigate the case and report back within a week.
Dilip Ghosh, the lawyer for the accused, said his clients admit to tying the couple to a tree and asking them for money, but not to sexual assault. Ghosh said he wasn’t aware of any written confessions.
“The people of the village say the rape didn’t happen,” he said. “There were so many people there that evening that they can’t all be lying.”
But Kazi Mahammad Hossain, a sub-inspector at the Labhpur police department, said he has “no doubt” that she was raped repeatedly.
“When she came in, she was in very bad condition,” he said. “She could barely walk.”
Six miles away from Subalpur is another woman whose life was irrevocably changed after Jan. 20: the Muslim man’s wife.
Sitting on the floor of one of the mud shacks lining Chowhatta’s narrow dirt lanes, she wailed for several minutes before composing herself enough to tell her story.
The first time she heard about the affair was when men from the neighboring village arrived asking for 27,000 rupees to free her husband. She had to sell her most prized possession, one that held the key to her 16-year-old daughter’s future: a gold necklace intended for her dowry.
“I have now lost my husband, my jewelry and any chances of getting my daughter married,” said the woman, 35.
NEW DELHI: The village elder delivered his judgment shortly before midnight. The woman had sinned. She was a Hindu who’d had a relationship with a married Muslim outsider. To restore village honor, he said, she needed to be punished.
The sentence he settled on: rape by her neighbors. Yeah, that'll do it. I wonder how honorable the village feels now?
A crowd of 300 people watched the trial on Jan. 20, and at least one captured the proceedings on his mobile phone. On the headman’s orders, the 20-year-old woman was untied from a tree in the remote Indian village, taken to a thatched shed and raped repeatedly over about six hours, according to a police report of the victim’s testimony. Among her alleged attackers: the headman himself.
“These people do not fear the police, they fear their own tribal leaders,” said Ajoy Menon, a police constable in the Birbhum district in West Bengal state, where the rape occurred. “Most of them don’t abide by the same laws you and I do. For many of them, their leaders are the law.”
The latest Indian rape case to reverberate around the world reveals the workings of an informal justice system that sets rules and imposes sanctions for many of the 800 million rural Indians. In the world’s largest democracy, village councils rule on issues including marriage, property and women’s attire. Many reinforce a religious caste-based system that helps block India’s most marginalized from escaping illiteracy and a life lived on $2 a day at most.
Police in Birbhum say they also have mobile phone footage of the rape. Three officers stood guard outside the victim’s room at the hospital where she was being treated a week after the assault.
Thirteen men are in custody and have been denied bail. Their lawyer says they will plead not guilty. In the village, six residents denied the woman was raped.
 |
| Suspects being led to prison |
“Our village leader, he’s like a father figure to us,” said Mollika Todo, a female villager whose relative has been arrested for the rape.
A 2011 Supreme Court ruling that ordered state governments to prosecute members of village councils who take the law into their own hands hasn’t ended this parallel justice system. About 90 percent of rural disputes are resolved in this way because of the lack of judges and courts in remote areas, said Kripa Ananthpur, an assistant professor at Chennai-based Madras Institute of Development Studies who researches informal governments.
In parts of India where communities are segregated by caste and religion, people have paid with their lives for ignoring local custom. Those who flout traditional mores barring marriage outside of their community or religion can face social ostracism, including eviction from their village, by order of the councils.
About 1,000 people, mainly women, are murdered in honor killings every year, many ordered by village councils that ruled the victim had brought shame on family or clan, according to the Honour Based Violence Awareness Network, a London-based research organization that fights honor killings around the world.
In Birbhum district, at least three women were stripped, beaten and paraded for several miles along a country road on orders of a village council in 2010. Their alleged transgression: having relationships with men from neighboring communities.
Some council leaders have issued bans on women wearing jeans and carrying mobile phones, according to local media reports. In a 2012 incident that grabbed headlines nationally, a village chief blamed the consumption of chow mein for the rise in rape cases in Haryana, saying it caused hormonal imbalances that led to rape, the Times of India reported.
“Modernity, the perception of western values, it’s encroaching on the villagers who are clutching at their ancient, cultural identity,” said Biplab Mukherjee, a coordinator at the Kolkata-based group Masum, which researches police abuse.
Subalpur, where the rape took place, is 125 miles north of Kolkata, accessible only by a narrow, bumpy dirt road. About 400 people live in a warren of mud-brick homes, many with adjoining pens with cows or water buffalo.
The rape victim had recently returned from a trip to New Delhi that had changed her, said Sunil Murmur, a man from a neighboring settlement.
She came back speaking Hindi, in a region where Bengali is the main dialect, Murmur said. A visit to her hut on Jan. 26 showed Bollywood posters adorning one wall, name-brand creams and imported snacks sitting on a shelf affixed to another wall, and glass bangles hanging from a rod.
“Her family denied the affair, but she continued to misbehave,” said Murmur. “So the village chief decided she would be punished.”
Villagers agreed on the events leading up to the punishment. After being dragged out of her hut and tried in a dusty 40-square-foot clearing in the center of the village, she and the Muslim man were fined a total of 50,000 rupees ($800) by the local council.
The man’s family paid the fine and he fled the area. His wife said she hasn’t seen him since.
The woman’s family was too poor to pay her share of the fine, even when it was reduced to 2,000 rupees.
The village head then gave the order to “Go have fun with her,” according to the police report obtained by Bloomberg News.
It took the woman almost two days to escape after the rape, according to the police report. Neighbors prevented her from leaving the village and allegedly threatened to burn down the family home if they spoke to the district authorities. After reaching a police station in Labhpur, about a 25-minute drive from Subalpur, she was sent to a hospital.
Amal Karmar, a doctor who treated the victim, said in a Jan. 25 interview that her injuries clearly indicated multiple rape. The woman was in stable condition, he said.
The hospital has barred public entry to the gynecological ward where she is being treated. Two of her brothers are in police custody for their own safety, according to two police officers who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the case.
The hospital and police denied requests to interview the family.
Indian law prohibits identification of a rape victim. Bloomberg News has not used the victim’s name nor that of the Muslim man and his wife.
In nearby villages, residents condemned the rape. “What the leader has ordered is unacceptable,” said S.K. Chowdhury, 52, a Labhpur shopkeeper. “There’s nothing wrong with village councils, but there is something wrong when one person uses his power to do something as terrible as this.”
Sheikh Jogral, who owns a fish shop in Chowhatta village, where the Muslim man lived, said it’s better to take disputes to local leaders, who offer swift justice. Elected politicians and police don’t understand the village way of life and may be corrupt, he said.
“Normally we prefer to settle things among ourselves, among our own people,” said Jogral. “We don’t have any connection to the local government, ministers or police if we can avoid it.”
Village leadership is usually passed on from father to son and tends to remain within the family until there are no more male offspring, said Ananthpur, the Madras institute assistant professor. The village then meets to appoint a new leader, who will probably come from the dominant caste and have some education.
“Some have now included women in the councils while others have appointed lawyers as their village leaders,” said Ananthpur. “This particular example is horrendous. I’ve never seen anything this bad.”
Two nights after the rape, the two officers said, policemen advanced down a path toward Subalpur to arrest the suspects. As they approached, arrows flew out of the darkness, hitting one policeman in the shoulder.
Officers called for reinforcements and pushed on toward the village. This time they were blocked by a makeshift barrier of cattle carts, trees and bamboo sticks. After dismantling the barrier, they were hit by a barrage of bricks.
The villagers were finally overwhelmed by sheer numbers, and the suspects were arrested. But later two trucks filled with men from Subalpur pulled up outside the police station and demanded that the suspects be released. The threat diminished only after police called officials from the All India Trinamool Congress party, which rules West Bengal, and asked them to intervene.
Phiroj Kumar Pal, a public prosecutor in the district, said all 13 men arrested for the rape have confessed to the crime in writing. The Supreme Court on Jan. 24 ordered a local judge to investigate the case and report back within a week.
Dilip Ghosh, the lawyer for the accused, said his clients admit to tying the couple to a tree and asking them for money, but not to sexual assault. Ghosh said he wasn’t aware of any written confessions.
“The people of the village say the rape didn’t happen,” he said. “There were so many people there that evening that they can’t all be lying.”
But Kazi Mahammad Hossain, a sub-inspector at the Labhpur police department, said he has “no doubt” that she was raped repeatedly.
“When she came in, she was in very bad condition,” he said. “She could barely walk.”
Six miles away from Subalpur is another woman whose life was irrevocably changed after Jan. 20: the Muslim man’s wife.
Sitting on the floor of one of the mud shacks lining Chowhatta’s narrow dirt lanes, she wailed for several minutes before composing herself enough to tell her story.
The first time she heard about the affair was when men from the neighboring village arrived asking for 27,000 rupees to free her husband. She had to sell her most prized possession, one that held the key to her 16-year-old daughter’s future: a gold necklace intended for her dowry.
“I have now lost my husband, my jewelry and any chances of getting my daughter married,” said the woman, 35.
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