Asifa’s Gang-Rape & Murder Case: Stark Realities & Vital Lessons!

By Mohamed Harees –APRIL 23, 2018

Lukman Harees

‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’- Martin Luther King, Jr.

As the fast-tracked trial of eight men accused in the brutal gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Jammu and Kashmir began, outrage over sexual crimes against women and girls, spread yet again not just across India, but also far beyond. The body of Asifa Bano was found in Kathua on January 17 this year and a four-month police investigation found she was kidnapped, starved, drugged, and raped repeatedly inside a Hindu temple. The police say the attack was planned and carried out to try and drive her Bakarwal Muslim nomadic community out of the area. India’s Supreme Court instructed that the Jammu and Kashmir state government provide security for Asifa’s family under threat, as well as for the family’s brave lawyer, Deepika Rajawat, who allegedly faced rape and death threats herself. Apparently exposing the tense communal divide in India between the majority Hindu and minority Muslim population, the case has thus become another battleground in India’s religious wars, with Hindu nationalists turning it into a rallying cry — not calling for justice for Asifa, but rushing to the defence of the accused.

As IMF chief Christine Lagarde  remarked, ‘’what has happened (in India) is just revolting. I would hope that the Indian authorities, starting with Prime Minister Modi pay more attention because it is needed for the women of India’. Like any controversial event, the hashtag #JusticeforAsifa became a widespread movement of rage across the country and internationally. Sexual harassment, assault, and rape are ubiquitous problems of India, and action is once again pressured by the eyes of an enraged international community. However sexual abuse by those in authority and close to them ,has become commonplace not just in India, even beyond, in US, UK and Sri Lanka for example. Rape culture is thus but one reflection of the utter moral degradation not just in Maha Bharat which boasts of a great civilization and a glorious past, but across the so-called civilized world too.  Some realities ,observations and lessons are therefore worth taking note, specially in the context of  how politicians, the lawyers, the Police as well as the public acted in the case of Asifa’s gruesome rape/murder case which are relevant to all even beyond the borders of India.

Initially, the political establishment’s sheer indifference and apathy in the matter until recently, was disgusting to say the least. Their selective silence showed their partiality and their inability to stand up for justice for all. The reason why, when Asifa’s case indeed shocked the nation and sparked a political storm, blaming fingers were pointing out at the BJP over its’ partial attitude towards the heinous crime. It was two BJP ministers Lal Singh and Chander Prakash in the State, who took part in a rally in support of the Kathua gang-rape accused. BJP MP and spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi however in a tongue in the cheek statement said “What kind of action should we take if someone comes and says that they were misled?” “Is it a crime to get misled?” she asked, adding that the people get misled and this can happen with anyone. The two BJP ministers were misled by a few people. When you are in public life, people come to you with their version… So, the lesson to them is not to believe one side or the other and let the law take its course”. It was eventually public pressure which led to the two ministers submitting their resignation. The government’s action has been barely adequate when crimes against women have been on the rise despite tough laws enacted in 2013 in the wake of the horrific gang Nirbhaya rape case, involving a New Delhi woman Jyoti Singh Pandey and her subsequent death in 2012. 

BJP was deploying both silence and noise as part of a strategy. The BJP’s cold indifference to the victim and her family until latter stages , was both sinister and disturbing. Modi in any case, remains reluctant to condemn communal or gender related violence, especially when the victims are Muslims. Even when deriding Muslims has become an everyday affair, Modi rarely pulls up his offending colleagues. Virtually every day, some BJP legislator or another makes offensive remarks about minorities. ‘The Wire’ Indian online journal has this to say. ‘Modi has a way with words but chooses not to speak when it is politically inconvenient to do so. At times of national tragedy – and who can deny the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl by individuals connected to the police is both a tragedy and a disgrace – people expect their leaders to speak out in the name of the nation. Why is Modi reluctant to speak? What awful political calculus is dictating his silence?’. After a long silence, facing flak and political heat over the recent incidents of crimes against women and children, when PM Modi finally spoke out and condemned the crime, it was too late and too little. The long silence of the BJP political establishment to do condemn the gruesome act has been deafening.

Then there was the lawyers’ obstruction in this gang-rape case, which should be taken cognisance of , which sadly reflects the deterioration of the overall moral standards in the legal profession. Shame on a profession which is duty bound to uphold the rule of law free of partisan politics and religious differences!. In contrast, lawyers from the  Jammu and Kashmir Bar Council, Jammu High Court Bar Association, and Kathua district bar association stooped low and obstructed advocates representing the victims’ family in the courts. Jammu High Court Bar Association also passed a resolution to protest and not to attend the court  and lawyers took to the streets shouting slogans and trying to block the road outside the court where the charge sheets have been filed, obstructing Police from the filing of charge sheet in the court as well. The Police team was also heckled by the lawyers and prevented from submitting the charge sheet before the Chief Judicial Magistrate court in Kathua. This tantamount to impeding the process of law which affects the delivery of justice” and Supreme Court observed “Obstruction of process of law and delivery of justice, and that too by lawyers, cannot be condoned and is unethical. Access to justice cannot be impeded by lawyers”.

Of course, there are always angels among Satans. It was the victim family’s lawyer Deepika Rajawat, an Advocate in Jammu and Kashmir High Court and also Chairperson of Voice For Rights, an NGO working in the field of human rights, who was lauded by many for her undeterred fight for justice in the case despite several threats from the Jammu Bar Association, while some right wing peoples were even threatening her to kill and rape. She also served a legal notice upon Zee News, allegedly for broadcasting a false news report tarnishing her image. She has become an internet sensation with her hell-bent attitude in fighting for what’s right- a hero who has defied all threats and abuses, and embarked on an arduous journey to provide justice to the eight year old Asifa Bano. Many tweets and posts echoed that ‘Deepika may be fighting the case alone but the whole nation is standing with her’. In a statement, she boldly thundered ‘Justice is blind to caste, community and religion. I have full faith in the judiciary of this country, and I am sure that justice will be done. I am not deterred by the fake and false propaganda spread against me and I will continue to do my professional duty without fear or favour’. She indeed is a role model and an inspiration to all those lone voices who wants to bring justice to the vulnerable against the pressure exerted by the mighty and the powerful in their professions. 

With regard to Police action , there were mixed views. At the initial stages, with no signs of Police moving to trace Asifa’s whereabouts , on January 12th the family filed a police complaint, in which her father Yusuf Pujwala recalls ‘the Police were unhelpful’. He even recalled that one police officer suggested that she had ran off to “elope” with a boy. As time progressed, the tribe became more and more frustrated at the lack of law enforcement support; so staged protests in condemnation of ignorance. This finally forced two police officers to be assigned to the case.  It is said that Sanji Ram, a retired government officer, allegedly planned the kidnapping and rape along with the help of police officers Surender Verma, Anand Dutta, Tilak Raj and Deepak Khajuria, all of whom are Hindu. Khajuria was one of the officers who had been assigned to the case when she had first disappeared. Among those subsequently arrested were four police officers, including Khajuria as well who wanted to rape the 8-year old one more time before she was killed-a sick rapist indeed!. Further, sub-inspector Anand Dutta and head constable Tilak Raj were also accused of trying to scuttle the probe by not collecting vital evidence and washed the girl’s dress to help the accused.

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