On the night of November 27, 2019, a 26-year-old veterinary assistant surgeon working at a state-run hospital was returning home in Shamshabad, Telangana when she called her sister at 9.22 pm to tell her that her two-wheeler scooter had a flat tyre. She was scared, she told her sister. That was the last time anyone ever heard from her.
The next morning her charred body was found near the toll booth from where she had called. She had been raped and then murdered.
The brutal crime caused a national uproar. It turned out that the police had not immediately responded to the veterinarian’s parent’s missing person report. Had they done so, they could have prevented the crime.
The very next day, Telangana police arrested four men, Mohammed Arif, Chintakunta Chennakeshavulu, Jolu Shiva and Jolu Naveen and recorded their purported confessions.
Late at night, or rather early in the morning of December 6 when it was still dark outside, the men were escorted by 10 police personnel to the spot where the doctor’s body was found, ostensibly for ‘evidence collection’. Then, claiming that the men had tried to run away after snatching two police weapons, all four were shot dead. All had bullet injuries on the front of their bodies.
Cyberabad police commissioner V.C. Sajjanar held a press conference at the site of the killing clarifying that the police had fired at the men in self-defence. “See, law has done its duty,” he said.
Now nearly three years later, a Supreme Court appointed three-member commission headed by retired judge Justice V.S. Sirpurkar has concluded that the four “were deliberately fired upon with an intent to cause their death.”
Three of the four were minors, two of them 15-year-olds, and came from marginalised socio-economic backgrounds. The commission has recommended the policemen involved be tried for murder.
National outrage
The brutal rape and murder of the veterinarian, referred to as Disha (not her real name), led to outrage and a demand for swift and exemplary punishment.
The then union minister of state for home affairs, G Kishan Reddy said he was ‘distraught’ and promised stringent action against those found guilty. The Telangana Mahila Congress also demanded justice and accused the state government of failing women.
Protests were held across the country and the issue was raised in Parliament during which member of Parliament Jaya Bachchan said in the course of a heated debate that the rapists should be lynched.
There can be no doubt that the Telangana police had been under enormous pressure to bring the rapists to justice.
Asking questions
Hours after the ‘encounter’ killings, a group of women’s rights activists based in Hyderabad, wrote an urgent letter to the chief justice of the Telangana high court. They were disturbed and upset by the swift exoneration of the 10 policemen by their boss. They were also concerned that evidence connected with the killing would go missing or be tampered with.
That same night, the chief justice asked a division bench to take up the matter. It was 8 pm.
The judges ordered that the bodies be preserved and the post-mortem, when conducted, should be videographed. The video would then be kept with a district judge.
On December 12, on the basis of a public interest litigation, the Supreme Court announced the setting up of the Sipurkar Commission to ‘uncover the truth in the present case’.
Unanswered questions
“At that juncture senior police officers were applauding the killing,” said senior advocate Vrinda Grover who represented one of the petitioners and deposed before the Commission. The impunity with which the men had been killed had the backing of the top police leadership. “This was cold-blooded murder by men in khaki who were usurping the role of the judiciary,” she said.
But women in this country have a “legitimate expectation that the law of the land will step in to hold the perpetrators to account and deliver justice,” continued Grover. “Any action, whether by criminals or state agents, which pose a threat to the rule of law, creates a society that jeopardises the freedoms, rights and safety of women. Impunity and rule of law cannot co-exist.”
There were 655 encounter killings—extra-judicial killings by police, most often on grounds of ‘self-defence’–over the past five years, minister of state for home Nityanand Rai told Parliament in February this year.
Fake encounters have implications for rights of individuals, groups, law and public policy. The victim has a right to justice. The deceased victim and the victim’s family have a right to know the truth. The people have a right to know whether the rule of law was followed or not, said Grover.
But the encounter killing over the Disha rape and murder leaves one crucial question unanswered: Were the men who were shot dead the same men who had raped and killed her?
We might never know.
GENDER TRACKER
With the elevation this week of Shoba Annamma Eapen to the bench, Kerala now has seven women judges.
Courts with the most number of women judges are:
Madras: 13
Delhi: 12
Telangana: 10
But five high courts – Uttarakhand, Patna, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya – still have no women judges.
Source: LiveLaw
GOING PLACES: “Am I trending on twitter?”
Nikhat Zareen,25, won gold at the women’s world boxing championship, becoming only the fifth Indian woman to be crowned world champion. One of four daughters born to an orthodox family in Nizamabad, Telangana, Nikhat began boxing at the age of 13. “I wanted to change the belief that women should just be in the kitchen and not dream of doing anything more,” she told Veenu Singh in this April 2022 Brunch story. “For me, all roads lead to the next Olympics.”
WE HEAR YOU
“Since I’ve come out to my family, my club and my teammates, that period of overthinking everything and the stress it created has gone. It was impacting my mental health. Now I am just confident and happy to be myself finally.”
In coming out as gay, 17-year-old Blackpool footballer Jake Daniels became the first openly gay male professional footballer in the UK.
STORIES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED
Who’s afraid of live-streaming hearings on same-sex marriage?
Issues raised in petitions to legalise same-sex marriage do not involve issues of national importance. Nor do they concern the violation of fundamental rights, the government has told the Delhi high court.
The Delhi high court on May 17 was not amused and said the language used by the Centre in its affidavit is ‘objectionable’.
“Such an affidavit cannot come from a union ministry. These things must be vetted,” the court said and asked the government to file a fresh affidavit ahead of its next hearing on 20 August.
The petitions to recognise same-sex marriage “deeply affects 7-8% of the population,” advocate Neeraj Kishen Kaul who is appearing for one of the petitioners told me. “There are extremely important Constitutional rights already recognised by the Supreme Court,” he said.
Centre defends gender bias in Hindu succession law
The Centre has defended a provision in the Hindu Succession law which determines that if a woman dies without leaving a will, the line of succession will favor her husband’s parents over her own, even if her property is self-acquired.
Under Hindu law, the first in line for succession, if a woman dies intestate (without a will), are her husband and children. But, if the husband predeceases her and she doesn’t have children, the next in line is the husband’s heirs and not her own parents. It’s only if the husband has no heirs that the property can be inherited by her parents.
Enacted in 1956, the Hindu Succession law covers not just Hindus but Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists. It creates two different routes for succession for men and women. The property of a man who dies intestate devolves equally to his mother, wife, and children. If there is no such successor, it goes to his father or his heirs.
Read Utkarsh Anand’s story here.
Bail for Indrani Mukerjea
In the six-and-a-half years since the arrest of Indrani Mukerjea in 2015 for the murder of her daughter Sheena Bora in 2012, just 68 of 237 prosecution witnesses have been examined. Taking note of the fact that the trial is not likely to conclude any time soon, the Supreme Court granted bail to Indrani Mukerjea.
Mukerjea’s former husband Peter Mukerjea was granted bail a year ago. The couple divorced in 2018
AROUND THE WORLD
Y viva Espana
Spain has approved a draft bill that will remove the requirement for 16 and 17-year-old girls to seek parental consent before terminating a pregnancy. The same bill also aims to provide employees sick leave for painful periods which, if approved, would make Spain the first European country to offer workers such leave, reports BBC. Finally, the bill aims to boost the development of hormonal contraception in men, stressing that contraception is not the responsibility of women alone. Government institutions must “discard taboos, stigmas, and guilt regarding women’s bodies,” equality minister Irene Montero said.
Equal pay for US women’s soccer
American women’s soccer scored a major win with the U.S. Soccer Federation agreeing that the women’s national team will receive the same pay as the men’s national team. There’s more: USA is also likely to be the first country to offer contracts that will share the unequal money from men’s and women’s World Cups equally with players.
Subscribe to Dhiman Sarkar’s football newsletter, Kick Off to know more about this and all things football.
Is breast milk free?
Actress Bette Midler could not have predicted the storm her tweet on the massive shortage of formula milk in America would cause. “TRY BREASTFEEDING. It’s free and available on demand,” she said, triggering a raging debate on the costs of breast feeding.
There are many reasons why families would opt for formula over breast milk including adoption, past breast surgery, low milk supply, the baby’s inability to latch or simply because a mother doesn’t want to.
But is breastfeeding free? Only if a mother’s time is worth nothing. Moreover, nursing mums require an additional 500 calories per day, estimates Mayo Clinic. That comes at a cost.
But, the current debate ignores the impact of aggressive marketing campaigns by formula manufacturers on low-income families in the developing world where safe drinking water might not be readily available and the cost of formula can make a serious dent on family income.
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| That’s it for this week. If you have a tip or information on gender-related developments that you would like to share write to me at: namita.bhandare@gmail.com. |