Barely have the voices of the protests against sexual assault of four minor girls in Hisar district in Haryana subdued, another horrific display of sexual violence has occurred in Badayun district of Uttar Pradesh.  Two Dalit cousins – both minors – were brutally gang raped, murdered and hung from a tree on May 27, 2014. The hanging of the bodies from a tree in full display by dominant communities, which is reminiscent of the dark ages, is most condemnable. This is one among a growing number of incidents of sexual and caste violence.

PUDR mourns the death of the 23-year-old victim of an intensely violent attack and gang rape. However, rather than giving in to anger caused by this distress, we believe that this is a time to reflect on the constitutive contexts that produce an event and figure out how it might never be repeated.

It is with great dismay and outrage that PUDR condemns the award of President’s Police medal to Dantewada Superintendent Ankit Garg. He is the officer accused by Soni Sori of having inflicted grave sexual violence upon her while she was in his custody in Dantewada. Soni Sori is an adivasi teacher who was indicted for having Maoist links and arrested in October 2011. Soni Sori’s case is pending before the Supreme Court under whose direction her medical examination was done outside Chhattisgarh and severe sexual torture was established.

PUCL and PUDR organised a meeting on 22 Oct, 2011 on “Enforced Disappearances and Discovery of Mass Graves in Kashmir”. Speakers included Khurram Parvez of International Peoples Tribunal on Kashmir (IPTK) and JKCCS, Paramjeet Kaur Khalra of the Khalra Mission from Punjab, and Supreme Court lawyer Nitya Ramakrishnan, and were presided over by law researcher Usha Ramanatham. Interventions were made by Justice Rajender Sachar, Vrinda Grover, Pushkar Raj and Gautam Navlakha among others.

The rape and murder of Asiya Jan and Neelofer Jan by members of the CRPF in Shopian, Kashmir and the subsequent dumping of their bodies in a stream is a horrific crime by any measure, in any society.