Akhilesh and Mulayam blend arrogance and incompetence as UP leaders' response to rape tragedy becomes 'theatre of the absurd' By Piyush Srivastava Published: 23:26 GMT, 4 June 2014 | Updated: 01:17 GMT, 5 June 2014 A week after two teenage cousins were raped and hanged from a tree in Badaun's Katra Sadatganj village, the leading lights of the ruling Samajwadi Party continued to cover themselves in shame and ridicule.
An aghast nation watched and heard the Chief Minister, his father and former Defence Minister, and a party ideologue trot out a series of bizarre explanations for the crime and the state government's response to it. "Do your job and let us do ours," Mulayam mumbled, even as son Akhilesh tried hard to deflect criticism and senior SP leader Ramgopal Yadav took swipes at the media and blamed break-ups between boys and girls for the rape-and-murder epidemic Uttar Pradesh seems afflicted with. Tragedy: A file photo of villagers near the site of crime at Katra Sadatganj village in Badaun, where two cousins were gang-raped and hanged from a tree "It's the Google era. All-clan show By Piyush Srivastava.
Teenage rape victims India: Revisiting the Badaun horror: The last hours of the two murdered teenage cousins as they were gang-raped and left for dead. By Piyush Srivastava Published: 23:39 GMT, 2 June 2014 | Updated: 23:39 GMT, 2 June 2014 It's a story of horror and grief that Sajeevan Lal Maurya narrates to politicians and mediapersons several times in a day. Sitting in the verandah of his thatched house in Badaun's Katra Sadatganj village, with the school books and copies of his daughter scattered all around him, Sajeevan (name changed) recalls what happened on the intervening night of May 26 and 27 when his 16-year-old daughter and 14-year-old niece were raped, tortured and murdered, while the abusive police officials did nothing to rescue the girls. The accused are three dabang (bully) brothers of the village, Avadhesh Yadav, Urvesh and Pappu, who are known for their criminal and intimidating behaviour— extortion, snatching, molesting and more.
Five people, including two police constables (in plainclothes on the right), who have been accused in the gang rape and murder of two Dalit girls, under police custody in Badaun on Monday. Tuam mass grave 'contains bodies of 800 babies' at site of Irish home for unmarried mothers. Hundreds of babies and toddlers believed to be buried in Tuam, Co GalwayThe site lies next to a former home for single mothers and their childrenThe children's home was run by Bon Secours nuns between 1925 and 1961Children were malnourished and neglected, which caused many of deathsThey also died of TB, pneumonia, measles, convulsions and gastroenteritisRelative of one missing child has filed complaint with local police, the gardai By Alison O'reilly Published: 08:56 GMT, 2 June 2014 | Updated: 16:33 GMT, 5 June 2014 The bodies of nearly 800 babies are believed to have been interred in a concrete tank beside a former home for unmarried mothers.
The dead babies are thought to have been secretly buried beside a home for single mothers and their children in County Galway, Ireland, over a period of 36 years. It is suspected that 796 children were interred on unconsecrated ground without headstones or coffins next to the home run by the Bon Secours nuns in Tuam between 1925 and 1961. Rape sometimes right, sometimes wrong: Gaur. Madhya Pradesh home minister Babulal Gaur stirred a hornet’s nest on Thursday when he described rape as a social crime, saying “sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong”.
He also insisted that governments could not ensure that women do not get raped, triggering angry reactions from the Congress. “It is a social crime which depends on the man and the woman. It is sometimes right and sometimes wrong,” Gaur told reporters in Bhopal, in the latest controversial remarks by a politician to shrug off his failure to check increasing incidents of rape. Read: Media highlighting only UP incidents: Akhilesh Gaur, who is from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said on Thursday that the crime of rape can only be considered to have been committed if it is reported to police. In adjoining UP, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s uncle and Public Work’s Department (PWD) minister Shivpal Singh Yadav blamed the media for “blowing” criminal incidents in the state out of proportion. Mulayam, Ram Gopal add to SP’s long list of shocking rape remarks. Rape is sometimes a result of relations between young boys and girls coming out in the open. Or maybe, sometimes, it is the result of watching too much television.
Whatever it is, it is impossible to stop rape completely. Demonstrators protest against Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav in Katra Sadatganj, Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh, where two girls were gang-raped and murdered. (AFP Photo) A raft of absurd, defensive comments from senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leaders is laying bare the Uttar Pradesh government’s trivialising attitude towards tackling the growing menace of rape and murder of young woman in the state. Akhilesh-led SP govt faces flak over rape cases In comments that drew all-round condemnation, Ram Gopal Yadav, SP’s national general secretary, said on Wednesday the media was deliberately and unfairly picking on the UP government although rape happened everywhere. "In many places, when the relationship between girls and boys come out in open, it is termed as rape.
It cannot be business as usual in UP anymore, PM must intervene. New India is exactly the same as old India. On May 27, two young girls go into the fields to relieve themselves. Their great-grandmothers probably did exactly this. What was true then is true today — men of a higher caste brutalised them as game and hanged them from the village tree, as a way to leave an imprint of their power and impunity.
In 1950, with the adoption of India’s Constitution, new India made a promise to be unlike old India. The Constitution promised all citizens equal dignity, equal value of life, and an equal access to opportunities. Despite the enormity of the events in the Badaun case, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, apparently a face of new India, reacted in the manner of an old India feudal overlord. ‘Public order’ and the ‘police’ are both areas within the domain of the state government, as per Schedule VII of the Constitution.
(Menaka Guruswamy practises law in the Supreme Court of India.