UPDATE (India): Alleged rape and killing of a girl increase tensions in Singur 

[NOTICE: The AHRC have developed a new automatic letter-sending system using the “button” below. However, in this appeal, we could not include e-mail addresses of some of the Indian authorities. We encourage you to send your appeal letters via fax or post to those people. Fax numbers and postal addresses of the Indian authorities are attached below with this appeal. Thank you.]

 

[RE: UA-393-2006: INDIA: Police violently assaulted peaceful peasants in West Bengal; UP-224-2006: INDIA: Journalists and protesters criticizing the brutal attack on Singur village protesters are severely injured by the police]
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INDIA: Rape; extra-judicial killings;
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Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that the body of 18-year-old girl was found being burnt inside the disputed land in Singur where the agrarians are resisting forceful eviction by the state government. It is believed that the girl was raped and then set on fire to cover up the crime. The police allegedly refused to register the complaint lodged by the girl’s father and claims that the girl committed suicide. However, the police version is very doubtful because it does not explain how the girl could enter the land surrounded by fences and guarded by more than 4,000 police officers and persons from the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPIM) party members and who are alleged to have set fire to her body. Due to the incident tension between the local villagers and the police and local administration have intensified.  To learn about the matter of forced eviction in Singur, please refer to: UA-393-2006 and UP-224-2006.

CASE DETAILS:

Singur in Hooghly district of West Bengal was in the national news because of the resistance by the agrarian populace against their forceful eviction from their property by the state government. The TATA group had been permitted to establish a ‘small car’ factory after the forced acquisition of the total 997.1 acres of fertile land by the West Bengal state government.

The local administration has then recently constructed fences around the concerned land in Singur in order to prevent the local villagers from entering the land. Also, the area has been reportedly guarded by more than 4,000 policemen and CPIM members and is under the total control of these people.

At around 4:30am on 18 December 2006, 18-year-old Tapasi Malik came out from her house in Bajemelia village in Singur area to go to toilet. Later people in the village were attracted by a bad smell and they saw a fire inside the concerned land. When about 50-60 villagers went to the scene, they saw the girl’s body was set on fire and a big hole had been dug that indicated that she was about to be buried (Photo 1: The hole in the land). They then put out a fire on the half-burned body and found that her undergarments had been removed (Photo 2: The victim’s body). It is believed that the girl was raped and the perpetrators attempted to burn the body before burying it to destroy the evidence of the crime. However, the villagers did not see anyone in the area and it seems that the perpetrators fled the scene immediately after hearing the villagers coming.  The distance between the girl’s house and the place of occurrence is about 100-120 meters.

After learning of the incident, more villagers gathered and protested against the killing of a girl. Soon after, Mr. Supratim Sarkar, the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Hooghly district rushed to the place of the incident with a huge contingent of police and sealed the spot. Shockingly, instead of investigating the incident, the SP then allegedly called the girl’s father Mr. Manoranjan Malik and forced him to sign a paper which he was not allowed to read. However, the father was told by the police that the girl committed suicide. It is suspected that the SP might have fabricated the statement about the false suicide story and got the father’s signature.

After the strong intervention with local human rights activists, the girl’s father was taken to the Singur police station to lodge a written complaint but the police refused to register it.

The girl’s half-burn body was brought to Serampore Walsh Hospital for post mortem examination but the attending doctors refused to do accept it. The body was then taken by the police to Calcutta Medical College and Hospital where the post mortem was done in the afternoon on December 18. The police did not hand over to the girl’s body to the family but instead brought it back to the morgue of Serampore Walsh Hospital, where the body is being kept.

The circumstances of the incident mentioned above raises suspicion that the alleged rapists might be either the policemen or CPIM members posting the area. First, it is almost impossible for a young girl to go inside the land surrounded by the fences where huge numbers of police and CPIM members are posted. Second, if she committed suicide who dug the hole and set her on fire? Third, it is almost impossible for the villagers or ordinary people to be able to dig a big hole within the guarded land without getting being noticed by more than 4,000 policemen and the CPIM members posted there. It should also be explained as to why the SP of Hooghly attempted to cover up the incident by forcibly getting the girl’s father’s signature in a paper, the contents of which were not informed to him and why the police refused to register the father’s complaint and tried to treat the case as a simple Unnatural Death (UD) Case.

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write to the relevant authorities listed below and demand prompt and full inquiry about this serious case. The alleged perpetrators should be identified and brought to justice as soon as possible. Please urge them to ensure that the case is registered with the police under rape and murder charges and that the investigation is conducted impartially.

 

 

 

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