Investigation finds charge of rape established against doctor

The police in Assam have filed a charge-sheet in the court against a doctor for raping his patient. The charge-sheet under section 376 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 has been filed by the officer-in-charge of the Dholai police station (PS) on 13 March 2012 at the Court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate in the district of Cachar after investigation of a case filed by a minor girl on 27 November, 2011.

This is disclosed recently by the district superintendent of police (SP) in Cachar in a report (vide No. G/SR/1281 dated 16/03/12) submitted to the Deputy Registrar of the Assam Human Rights Commission (AHRC) in response to a notice of the AHRC.

The report states that the survivor lodged a First Information Report (FIR) at Dholai PS inter alia alleging that on 27 November, 2011 at about 4 PM the complainant being accompanied by her sister in law (name withheld to protect identity) had been to the chamber of Dr Dilip Paul at Sadagram (Dholai Bazar) where he refused to check her up.

Instead, he asked her to be in his residential chamber for her check up and treatment. On her arrival at his residential chamber the accused doctor asked her to go inside while her sister in law was asked to wait outside. As soon as she entered the house, the accused doctor closed the door and window from the outside and forcibly raped her.

The AHRC issued a notice to the SP for a detailed report about the case after it registered a case of human rights violations (vide AHRC Case No. 302/2/11-12.) on the complaint filed by the Barak Human Rights Protection Committee (BHRPC).

The report of the SP, however, mentions that the medical test conducted after the investigation of the case started do not corroborate the allegations of the victim as well as those of the BHRPC against the doctor. It says that (1) evidence of recent sexual intercourse not detected, (II) evidence of violent mark not detected in her private parts and (III) her age is above 18 years and below 20 years.

The BHRC claimed that the victim/survivor is a minor girl studying in class IX.

However, on the examination of the witnesses of the complainant, witnesses of the accused and the place of occurrence the investigating police officer found that charge under section 376 of the IPC which provides punishment for rape is established, states the SP.

When the AHRC asked the BHRPC for its comments on the report of the SP the latter submitted a detailed response pointing out why the medical report can not be relied upon. According to the BHRPC the medical report can not be relied upon because (i) there was inordinate delay in conducting the test; (ii) the report goes against the circumstantial evidences; (iii) the report goes against the accounts of the witnesses as recorded by the police; and (iv) the element of sympathy of the doctors who conducted the test towards the doctor who is the alleged violator creeping in and vitiating the objectivity of the findings can not be ruled out as both of them are colleagues and belong to the same profession.

The BHRPC also said that the filing of charge-sheet by the police will facilitate the criminal court to conduct trial on the criminal aspect of case in order only to fix criminal liability and proportionate penal measure called for under the law. It is not the domain of the trial court to consider human rights liability of the violator and remedies to the victim/survivor. Therefore, it comes under the jurisdiction of the Commission to fix human rights liability and more importantly to provide redress to the victim/survivor in terms of adequate compensation.

The BHRPC in its submission urged the AHRC to recommend to the authorities to provide an adequate amount of compensation to the victim/survivor; and while fixing the quantum of the compensation the AHRC should take into consideration the aggravating factors involved in the case such as (a) that the alleged violator is a government servant paid from the state exchequer for acting as savoir for those who are in physical distress; (b) that the victim/survivor went to the alleged violator in full trust as his position demands; (c) that the alleged violator took benefit of position of custodian of the victim/survivors at the moment of commission of the violating acts; (d) that the case has a clear custodial angle; (e) that the age and social and other circumstances of the victim/survivor are such that the minor girl has had an entire life full of colours but which has been destroyed beyond repair for no faults of hers and her life has become an undesirable and unbearable burden on her fragile shoulders.

(This has also been published in the Newsblaze and is available at http://newsblaze.com/story/20120513124721lask.nb/topstory.html

Ethnophobia in Guwahati: Reflections on Twentyfourth November

Ethnophobia in Guwahati: Reflections on Twentyfourth November

A new metro dotted with a swanky skyline shows a potent underbelly for the crimes of passion on the street! An Adivasi women, Mandini, being outraged on its street in the presence of a cheering crew of camera wielding mob gives a mix of virile pleasure with an aesthetic of crime. On this obstreperous note, one sees the extent of criminal retaliation on emaciated menfolk of the Adivasis by the urban bred mob of post graduates, restaurant waiters and even young men from respectable middle class homes.

Adivasis came for justice and recognition on this ominous day of twentyfourth of November to this new metro. Being bruised, tortured and killed, they all were kept holding their ears by the police as a symbolic admission of their guilt. They are the marginalized and bone-turned-white arkati labourers who currently are the pluckers of leaf in the gardens of flamboyantly proud estate owners of Assam. It is a pride built on the shame of the dehumanized Adivasis, now re-enacted in the assaults on their men and women. Official statements indeed say it as 'retaliation after the Adivasis went berserk'! The wounded and the dead tell it all- who bore the reckless beating by these retaliators. The emaciated, malnourished and bucolic menfolk of the Adivasi protestors were surrounded, stoned, kicked and thrown into gutters by these retaliators. The Adivasi women rallyists were subjects of lewd comments from this set of tormentors. Still they are held guilty of their shame and harassment. The culpable homicide of Samson Naguri and the pronominal 'she' called Mandini instantiate a systematic collusion between the State and the retaliators. After the shrill mayhem, the State now atones by a series of commissioned inquiries, transfers and 'sack' of some bureaucrats and police officers.

In the domain of the civil society a there is an orchestrated attempt to portray the lack of shame on twentyfourth November as a legitimate expression of 'animosity' against the transgressors on the street, the Adivasis. One is appalled to hear a neo-Nietzschean vein of ressentiment from among the silent majority of Assam's intellectuals, elites and politicians about a historic sense of being the target of Adivasi anger. The projection of Adivasis being a mob of angry drunken lot is a schematic inversion of ethnic rage on any claim of recognition by anyone whom they consider 'other' within the layered and nuanced contours of Assam's language and culture.

The rage went in disciplining the Adivasi protestors as they could not take the abuses hurled at their womenfolk on their march to the State headquarters. What the great existentialist thinker Sartre called 'crime of passion', that is, a crime of lust, consternation and contempt that arises from a deeper sense of alienation found its expression. Politically speaking, constant harping on the theme of identity crisis among the ethnic elites of Assam from their non-ethnic others such as tribals, minorities-religious and linguistic, Adivasis and immigrants has already become a paranoia. The influence of ethno-nationalism cuts deep into the democratic sensibilities of self-righteous sections of Assam's civil society, who are yet to raise its voice against street hoodlums conducting mayhem on Adivasi rallyists. The result is that a vicious cycle of violence now touches Adivasi hamlets and they now too become revengeful on their counterpart. The human right groups, the conscience keeping intellectuals and the culture personalities suddenly fell silent when the instigators and the organizers of such dastardly outrage and killing are trying to speak in the name of Adivasi rage on the Assamese elites. Those who inquisitioned the Indian State for Kakopatahar, secret killings and monopoly of violence are now numbed by a passionate ethnophobia, the phobia of the other, even if the other is weak. Acts of retaliation, to say the least, is now condoned by these self-respecting individuals and groups. In effect, this pragmatically silent crew of opinion makers of Assam is now recovering from the shock of being caught in a narrow ethnic chauvinism as littérateurs are slowly penning down the 'swirls in the heart' generated by Mandini's rape. In this catharsis of victors, the Adivasis as transgressors within the civic space of Guwahati ( they were not given permission to hold the rally ) are continued to be paid back in a punishing coin. Home minister Shivraj Patil declared in the Lok Sabha that the Adivasis of Assam have lost their tribal characteristics and in effect, they are neither included in the list of tribes nor they become a part of the Assam's ethnic mosaic. They are just there in Assam as an exterior of both the State and the civil society. Guwahati, if described as the cosmopolis of the proud tea producers of Assam, cleans up the wound that it inflicted on the Adivasis by boasting its eligibility to host the first India international tea convention.