India: Cops' Kins Gang Rape the Minor Girl; Top Cop Comes to the Aid of the Rapists

-Our Correspondent

With each passing day, the over-ripe regime of capitalism, under the rule of the rich, presents us with more and more evidence of its decay and decomposition into barbarism.

Gujarat, a state in India, which has been awarded by the Central Government for development and good governance, is revealing itself as a den of crime and corruption. The state, where BJP Government is headed by Narendra Modi, has been converted into a police-bureaucratic state. The State was in spotlight after genocide of 2000 muslims in Godhara, and then the serial gang rapes of Patan. Complacence of high-ups in Modi’s saffron Cabinet in both cases, is now on record.

The state has once again hit the headlines, after the rape of a minor girl in its city of Surat on Friday, 12th June, where the rapists had later turned out to be kins of police officials. Most outrageous is the fact that the police not only tried to suppress the facts and evidence, but then the top cop, the Commissioner of Police himself, came to the aid of rapists, blaming the victim girl.

After a public outrage, where women gheraoed the office of the Commissioner, and the people taking the law into their hands attacked the rapists in police custody, the government had to replace the Commissioner.

The incident occurred at 5.30 am when the 17 year old girl, a class XII student, was on her way, on two wheeler scooter, to take her tuition class at Rander Nagar. As she proceeded with one of her classmate boy, they were intercepted by three men in an Opel Astra car, introducing themselves as policemen. They forced both the girl and her classmate inside the car.

They took the Car to secluded Dumas road, near City Palace Cinema. The three took turns to rape the girl on the back seat of the car. They also forced the girl to perform oral sex, and filmed this on mobile phone. The victim's classmate, who is also a student of class XII, was tied up inside the car while the girl was sexually assaulted by the three men inside the moving vehicle.

After one and a half hour’s drive, the trio dumped the girl at the Piplod road locality around 6.55 pm. The badly bruised girl called up her parents from a telephone booth and narrated her sordid tale to them. She was then taken to a government hospital for treatment after informing the police. The medical examination confirmed that the girl was raped. The girl is the niece of a noted psychologist of Surat.

The police showed its inability to identify and nab the culprits, until one of the rapists himself telephoned the girl on 13th June, threatening her against lodging a complaint, referring to his high connections in the police. Relatives of the victim then came to know about the identity of the rapists.

At 1 pm on 13th June, one of the rapists Shahid was arrested from his home in Kadarsha-Ni- Naal, pursuant to chase of the telephonic call. The mobile phone that contains video clip of the rape, and which would be an important evidence in the case, was also seized from Shahid. The co-accused, Tarik and Abu Bakar were arrested later.

At least two of the rapists turned out to be the sons of Police Officials. Shahid is son of Circle Police Inspector of Dholka town of Ahmedabad district, while Tariq's father is a police constable serving with the city police in Surat. Tarik had failed in three subjects in 12th standard recently. Another rapist Shahid, is son of Inspector Nizamuddin Saiyad, and runs his mobile phone shop ‘M.R. Electronics’ in Janta market of Surat. Shahid’s elder brother Nadir Saiyad is also a policeman in Godhra. His uncle JG Saiyad is Police Inspector in Banaskantha. His grandfather Gulam Rasul is a retired constable. Rapist Abu Bakar is married and is father of two children. He also owns a shop ‘M for Mobile’ in Janta market. Both Abu Bakar and Shahid run their shops in the same market.

Meanwhile, the Police Commissioner, Deepak Swaroop, earlier, on Friday, had tried to hide names of those arrested and their Police connections. The Police Commissioner had also passed some contradictory statements while briefing the press. Deepak Swaroop, had told the media that “the victim girl was in compromising position and the three youth took undue advantage of this. They posed themselves as police and made both sit in the car and gang raped the 17 year old girl”. He told that “this was stated by the girl in her complaint of gang rape”. However, all this turned out, later, to be a concoction by the police. Noteworthy is that it has become almost ritualistic for the police to pass disparaging remarks against the victim in rape cases and malign her image and character, in a bid to cover up their inability to curb the crime, protect the criminals, by creating an impression as if the victim was herself responsible for the crime committed upon her.

As the word spread about the involvement of the kins of policemen in the crime and the remarks by the police Commissioner, people gathered and demonstrated in front of the office of Commissioner of Police. As the protests against the gang rape case became shriller and widespread, with several outfits calling for a bandh on Monday, the government, in order to diffuse the situation, was forced to remove Deepak Swaroop, as Police Commissioner of Surat City. The remarks by the police Commissioner, had led to widespread protests in Surat. He was handed over the marching out orders by the perplexed government, late Saturday night when he was hosting a party at his home, entertaining the prominent people of the city. His new posting is yet to be announced by the state government.

"The Home Department has transfered Deepak Swaroop from Surat. He is being replaced by Shivanand Jha, Surat Range IG," Gujarat Minister of State for Home Amit Shah said. According to Home Department officials, Swaroop had reportedly said that the victim was seen in a compromising position with a boy and the three youths took benefit of it, which was contradicted by Shah. The new Commissioner Shivanand Jha is presently posted as Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) and a member of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the post-Godhra riots.

The rapist trio were sent to 14 days judicial custody by the Court, on 13th June, after the police failed to obtain their police remand, apparently in an act of favour to the culprits.

The pent-up anger of the people, exploded on Saturday as the rapist trio were brought by the police for their medical examination before lodging them in Jail pursuant to the judicial remand. As soon as the word spread that Shahid Saiyad, Tariq Qutubuddin Saiyad and Abu Bakr Shaikh had arrived at the hospital, crowds started to gather.

When police officials came escorting the accused for medical tests, near the radiology wing of the civil hospital, the enraged mob, numbering around 200, surrounded the three police teams — each escorting one accused — and demanded that the rapists be handed over to them. Outnumbered, the police officials drew out their service revolvers to keep the mob away, but failed. Sensing danger, the police shifted accused Shaikh to the casualty department till the mob could be controlled.

The crowd, which included women, snatched two of the three accused, from custody of the police, at New Civil Hospital (NCH), after they finished medical examination at 1.30 pm. The kicking and hitting mob targeted the groin area of the two suspects as they lay screaming on the floor.

The whole drama lasted for nearly 90 minutes as the aggressors in the mob would keep coming in to rain in some punches and kicks. Though their faces were covered, it is believed that Shahid and Tariq, both sons of police officials, faced the brunt of the mob fury even as cops managed to escort Shaikh to safety. The police then escorted all of the three accused back to the crime branch office at 3 pm. Police said one of the accused was badly injured in the attack but did not identify him. “The three are safe and their medical examination has been completed,” said Subhash Trivedi, DCP crime branch.

This is how the police maintain the ‘order’ in the cities! The rich and the officials of their government look upon the common people as the subjects of their pleasures, at their mercy. It is only the fear of the people uniting and coming to the roads against the class of rulers, which keeps them under certain check to some extent. The more the rule of the rich matures, the more it deteriorates, culturally, politically and socially. People have only two options before them- either bear this and even more barbaric conditions like the lambs, or to prepare the overthrow of this regime through a socialist revolution. Socialism or Barbarism, there is no middle path.

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