Like all his other jumlas, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pledge to ensure the women of their basic rights and protect them from oppression and torture has proved to be yet another empty promise. Had he really been concerned and committed to protect the honour and prestige of women, by now the message would have reached across the line, and the spiritual BJP leaders who are not tired of reminding the common people of their commitment to Hindu culture, its tradition, moral values and ethics, would not have dared to rape a girl student, that too inside the campus of Banaras Hindu University, a Hindutva bastion, in the heart of Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency of the self-proclaimed ‘vishwaguru’ Modi.
BJP men at 2 am in the dead of the night raped a woman student of BHU. Usually the local police station deputes a team of constables and sub-inspectors to ensure that no criminal act takes place during the night. But in this case, the police was not to be seen around. The top police officials, even the Superintendent of Police, Varanasi, is finding it tough to explain what these BJP-linked men were doing inside the campus at that hour. On the contrary, senior police officers are busy protecting the alleged rapists, ostensibly under orders from their political bosses.
Their roaming inside the campus at that odd hour hints at the fact that they were habitual offenders and used to move around in the campus in search for their preys. In fact, some police sources confide that they had the habit of roaming around the campus every day in the dead of night. It is really shocking that the Varanasi police has yet not come out with the clarification that why they were roaming inside the campus.
Modi’s regard and love for Muslim women is an open secret. It was his concern for women that made him to enact a law criminalising the practice of ‘triple talaq’. Modi is known as a crusader against religious orthodoxy, seeking to liberate Muslim women from the clutches of the Islamic patriarchy. However, a 26-second viral video from Manipur of three women being disrobed, raped and paraded by a crowd failed to move Modi and persuade him to visit Manipur. His uncaring attitude towards women’s exploitation and miseries had even rocked the Parliament.
His so-called concern for the miseries of the women wrestlers has been widely debated in the public domain. The women wrestlers, who were well known supporters of Modi, had levelled serious charges of sexual harassment against the president of the wrestling association, a powerful BJP MP, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, but Modi did not budge. While protesting at Jantar Mantar demanding justice, the champion women wrestlers were beaten and dragged by the police.
The gang rape in BHU took place on the night of November 1. The 22-year-old student was allegedly waylaid, stripped, and sexually assaulted by three BJP youth leaders while she was on a stroll with one of her friends on the campus. The victim had claimed that the three accused, who were riding a motorcycle, also made the video of her sexual assault. The police accepted the complaint but did not file an FIR on that day.
Within a couple of days the police come to identify the rapists. Though the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Bhelupur, Atul Anjan Tripathi claimed that the three persons – Kunal Pandey, Anand aka Abhishek Chauhan, and Saksham Patel – were identified, the fact is just after five days of the ghastly incident they were made to leave Varanasi. They were assigned the task of electioneering for assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh.
As per the police sources, on the day of crime, the three accused were roaming in the BHU campus after watching ‘natakatiyya,’ a folk drama when they spotted the victim strolling with her friend. They shooed the friend away and raped the engineering student. The perpetrators filmed the act as well before fleeing the spot. The traditionalist pious souls were all drunk. All the three used to reside in close vicinity of the BHU campus. They reportedly admitted to their crime during police interrogation.
After realising that the situation was getting out of hand as the local people of Varanasi became restive, hit the streets to express outrage at the shocking incident, the three BJP youth leaders were asked to come back. The trio enjoyed so much of political clout and patronage that it took police two months to arrest them. Kunal Pandey is the convenor of BJP’s IT cell in Varanasi, Abhishek Chauhan is the working committee member and Saksham Patel is the co-convenor.
Usually police takes a criminal on police remand, but in this case they were sent to prison on judicial remand. The police did not ask for PC to find out more of their operations and whether they have been habituated of committing this nature of crime. So far no other female or male student at BHU has mustered courage to file a complaint, scared of the accused’s political reach and their close relationship with the top BJP leaders. Their photos with Narendra Modi, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP president J P Nadda are making the rounds on social media.
The most shameful has been the denial of their association with the BJP by the state BJP leaders. BJP’s Varanasi city unit in-charge Vidya Sagar Rai denied the association of the three accused with the party. Nevertheless, the president the UP Congress Ajay Rai alleged: “Had they been arrested before the elections, the message would have gone to the entire country that these three BJP officials are rapists. To protect the electoral interest of the BJP, the police let them go free.”
However, the university academics have started demanding answers from UP CM Yogi Adityanath, the Bulldozer Baba of BJP, whether he would order his bulldozers to flatten the houses of these accused. Whether the girl would get justice. Or this case would also be pushed under the carpet. While Yogi claim she’s creating crime-free state, but the bitter reality remains that crime against women has been the highest in Uttar Pradesh. Rai was absolutely correct in saying: “For the BJP, ‘Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao’ is just a slogan. I had said at that time that BJP people are involved in this matter.” Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said in a post on X/Twitter that those arrested for gang-raping the woman student are part of a new crop of BJP workers thriving under the patronage of senior leaders.
Though ABVP state media coordinator Abhinav Mishra demanded that police file a charge-sheet in the case at the earliest and also take action against those who protected the accused for two months, a photo on the social media shows them participating at a RSS event in the traditional Sangh attire. The ABVP also called on the BHU administration to take appropriate steps to ensure the safety of everyone on the campus. This only manifests the double-speak of the RSS, which has been primarily responsible for creating a lawless situation in the campus. The RSS cadres have earlier insulted the professors and made them quit BHU. A Muslim professor who was a Sanskrit scholar was forced to stop taking classes of Sanskrit claiming that a Muslim cannot teach Sanskrit.
Under Modi’s rule, rising crimes against women in India has been a matter of concern. India has one of the highest rates of violence against women in the world. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCEB), in 2021, a total of 4,05,861 cases of crimes against women were reported in India, of which 32,033 cases were of rape. 2021 saw a rise of 26.35% over six years – from 338,954 cases in 2016. In Haryana, sexual harassment charges against Sandeep Singh, a minister in the BJP cabinet was again a matter that drew outrage. The BJP did not drop him for political compulsions. (IPA Service)
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