Is compensation enough for Chhattisgarh Police rape victims?
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued showcause notice to the Chhattisgarh government in the police rape cases and recommended relief of Rs 37 lakh for the victims, most of whom are tribals, including Rs 3 lakh each for eight rape victims, Rs 2 lakh each for six sexual assault victims and Rs 50,000 each for two victims of physical assault.
A week ago, the NHRC announced in a press release that 16 women were “prima facie victims of rape, sexual and physical assault by state police personnel in Chhattisgarh…” in Bijapur district in October 2015.
In the release, it also said: “Prima facie, human rights of the victims have been grossly violated, for which the state government is vicariously liable.”
Tribal women from five Chhattisgarh villages accused policemen of sexually assaulting 40 of them, with two of them being gangraped. These women included a 14-year-old girl who was allegedly blindfolded and gangraped.
The tribal women were raped in their own houses, fields and police stations by the force responsible to safeguard them. With utter disregard for any human rights, the Indian State’s security forces have acted with impunity, with the State trampling upon the rights of people without any concern for punishment.
Can rape and sexual assault be dismissed and eventually compensated in such a financial manner? Is the compensation enough for the abused women? Why hasn’t the rights body sought suspension of the criminal policemen? Moreover, why are the Chhattisgarh Police still investigating the case?
This is quite clearly an inherent flaw in jurisprudence: the Chhattisgarh Police are both the accused and investigative body in the case. In all probability, the very same criminals in uniform will investigate the rapes until the probe is entrusted to an independent agency - a horrific travesty of justice. How impartial the probe would be is anybody’s guess!
Moreover, the NHRC hasn’t even tried to take the probe away from the indicted police personnel. Ironically, it is the same state machinery which they described as being “vicariously liable”.
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| Is compensation enough for the abused women? |
The Chhattisgarh Police department, on the other hand, has not and will never voluntarily give over the probe to an independent agency. No one ever gives up power, particularly when its own men are involved in committing heinous crimes.
And in the end, it would all end up as a cruel joke. Whoever thinks the hapless women would even get what has been recommended? It will all be watered down and delayed till the point where it would not matter a dime to the victims - let alone helping them pick up the threads of their lives with the money.
The recommended compensation, if it ever sees the light of day, would go through umpteen layers of bureaucracy and after numerous years, it will trickle down to a drop. By the time the pittance is eventually disbursed to the victims, many would have left for their heavenly abode.
In this dark saga of state repression, the only silver lining is that the NHRC did take suo moto cognisance of media reports and dispatched a probe team to investigate the matter and brought out the issue out into the open.
Apart from that, it has done precious little. For it to be taken seriously, the rights body needs to get the investigation transferred to an independent body and continuously monitor it in a time-bound fashion. Only then would justice be dispensed to the tribal women who were raped in fields, homes, and police stations without anyone to even pick them up and take them home.