[The
alleged attack comes four months after a woman was gang-raped and tortured and
her companion beaten in a case that shocked the nation and led to weeks of
spontaneous protests by people demanding better security for women. That case
led to a strengthening of in rape laws, but horrific rapes continue to be
reported around India with regularity.]
By Gardiner Harris
 |
Adnan Abidi/Reuters
Protesters converged at
Swami Dayanand Hospital in New Delhi on Friday as shock
spread in the Indian capital over the alleged rape
and abduction of a 5-year-old girl
by a neighbor.The girl, said to be in critical
condition, was being taken to a larger
facility.
|
The police arrested a 25-year-old man early Saturday
morning in Bihar, said Rajan Bhagat, a Delhi police spokesman. The man accused
in the case, Manoj Kumar, had recently married and was tracked down with the
help of cell phone records to the town of his in-laws, according to Indian
media reports.
Mr. Kumar had a ground-floor apartment in the same building
as the family of the 5-year old, who went missing the night of April 14,
according to Indian media reports. Her parents reported her disappearance to
the police the next morning.
The girl was found on April 17 by her parents in the
ground-floor apartment after they heard her crying, although the accused had
already left by then. The girl was taken to a public hospital in New Delhi
Friday night, where doctors said her condition was critical, according to
Indian media reports.
“We found a 200-millimeter bottle and two, three pieces of
candle inserted into her private parts,” R.K. Bansal, the medical
superintendent of Swami Dayanand Hospital, said in a televised
interview."This is the first time I have seen such barbarism.”
“There were injuries on her lips, cheeks, arms and anus
area, her neck had bruise marks suggesting that attempts were made to strangle
her,” Mr. Bansal added.
The alleged attack comes four months after a woman was
gang-raped and tortured and her companion beaten in a case that shocked the
nation and led to weeks of spontaneous protests by people demanding better
security for women. That case led to a strengthening of in rape laws, but
horrific rapes continue to be reported around India with regularity.
Whether women are less safe in India than in other emerging
countries is uncertain, but the issue of rape and police competence in dealing
with such crimes has become a burning political issue.
In the most recent case, the parents of the 5-year-old
complained that the police failed to take their complaint seriously, failed to
search adequately for her attacker and then offered 2,000 rupees — about $37 —
if they would keep quiet about the case.
Those complaints prompted a small protest Friday, and rage
seemed to build after TV news channels showed a large mustachioed police
officer slapping a female protester in the face. A nascent political party in
India promised to hold protest rallies on Saturday in New Delhi over the case.
Concern in India’s central government ratcheted up so
quickly Friday night that Prime Mininster Manmohan Singh expressed regrets
about the case. Two police officers — including the lead investigator on the
case and the one seen slapping the protester — were suspended. The lead
investigator is himself being investigated for allegedly trying to bribe the
child’s family into silence, said Mr. Bhagat, the police spokesman.
Hari Kumar contributed reporting..
[“Most sophisticated
Nepalese recognise that there is no direct connection between politics in
Sikkim and Nepal. Nonetheless, there will be some concern that events in
Gangtok represent direct Indian intervention in neighbouring Himalayan
principality, and Nepalese are always quick to draw parallels between their own
situation and those of other Himalayan states,” it said]
By
Utpal Parasar
 |
| Picture courtesy: Google |
Thirty eight years have elapsed since Sikkim ceased to be a
monarchy and became a state of the Indian union. But repercussions of the
historic development are still felt in neighbouring Nepal.
Fears of Sikkimisation (yes, it’s a word used frequently in
Nepal) of Nepal -meaning takeover of the sovereign nation by the bigger
southern neighbour is still part of the discourse in political circles and
media.
Political parties who see a grand Indian design in everything
bad that happens in Nepal use this term frequently to rouse patriotic fervor.
And many common Nepalis do believe in Nepal’s imminent Sikkimisation.
Last month Dev Gurung, secretary of the Communist Party of
Nepal-Maoist, the faction which split from Pushpa Kamal Dahal led Unified
Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), said Sikkimisation has already begun and a
violent uprising is the only way to prevent its spread.
This fear is not new. A section in Nepal has been wary of
India’s so called Sikkimisation plans for close to four decades now as the
recently released Kissinger Cables by whistleblower website WikiLeaks show.
The huge cache of US diplomatic documents circulated between
1973 and 1976 include quite a few cables which indicate how Nepal viewed events
unfurling in Sikkim during that period.
A confidential cable sent from the US Embassy in Kathmandu in
April 1973 mentions about the Nepal government’s “understandable and
predictable” reaction of not making an official statement on disturbances in
Sikkim for fear of offending either India or China.
The cable details how four Nepali foreign ministry officials
expressed “intense interest” in the position of the great powers including
China on the issue during a social gathering and showed feelings of fraternal
sympathy for the Nepali majority population in Sikkim.
The officials were also anxious to get Soviet reaction to the
developments and asserted that in view of close ties between New Delhi and
Moscow, India would not “swallow” Sikkim without a “green light” from the
Soviets.
Another cable sent the same month details US Deputy Secretary of
State Kenneth Rush’s meeting with King Birendra in Kathmandu in which the
monarch opined that there were two points of view in Nepal regarding the events
in Sikkim.
“One, that it was initiated by India, in which case it would
affect others in area, and, two, that situation arose more or less out of
internal problems” (in Sikkim),” the cable states.
The situation mentioned is the riots against his unpopular rule
which led Palden Thondup Namgyal, the Chogyal (ruler), to seek protection from
India.
Birendra told Rush that he was “inclined to believe that it was
50-50 proposition” and that Nepal was closely watching the outcome of events in
Sikkim to determine its meaning.
In another meeting with US diplomats a month later Birendra said
Indians held all cards in Sikkim and took advantage of the situation. “He
(Birendra) said he did not know how (the) present arrangement will work out,
but he thinks there will be future troubles in Sikkim,” said the cable.
A cable sent in July 1974 on ‘Nepali view of Sikkimese Events’
notes the total absence of reporting in Nepali press on developments in Sikkim
and mentions it could be due to direct guidance from the palace to local
journalists.
But common Nepalis were keen on happenings in Sikkim and avidly
read reporting in Indian press on the subject. The cable speaks of Nepal
government’s concern on how Sikkim could become a sanctuary for activities of
Nepali Congress, which was plotting to usher democracy in Nepal.
“Most sophisticated Nepalese recognise that there is no direct
connection between politics in Sikkim and Nepal. Nonetheless, there will be
some concern that events in Gangtok represent direct Indian intervention in neighbouring
Himalayan principality, and Nepalese are always quick to draw parallels between
their own situation and those of other Himalayan states,” it said.
Another cable sent the same month mentions of “unhappiness”
among Nepalis at various levels due to India’s 1974 nuclear explosion and
intervention in Sikkim. “These events have revived fears of Indian hegemonistic
designs raised at time of 1971 Bangladesh crisis”, the cable said.
But after remaining mum for over a year, Nepal gave its first
official reaction to events in Sikkim when the country’s foreign minister said
in August 1974 that it was Nepal’s “unshakable stand that there should be no
outside interference in the internal affairs of any country”.
The cable noted that the minister’s statement after weeks of
studied silence “had effect of letting genie out of the bottle”.
A month later reacting to news of Sikkim getting parliamentary
representation in India, the same minister made a statement wishing for Sikkim
to “continue to make progress through the preservation of its traditional
entity,” said a September 1974 cable.
The same cable mentions of unanimous condemnation of Indian
action in Nepali media and protests by students outside the Indian Embassy in
Kathmandu. The cable noted the Sikkim issue could become a contentious one in
Indo-Nepal bilateral relations.
A subsequent cable speaks of a 5000-strong student demonstration
against India in Kathmandu where traffic was blocked at several places and
shops closed in protest against happenings in Sikkim. The cable notes that the
well organised campaign had approval from the Nepal government.
During a meeting with a senior US diplomat in New York in
September 1974, Nepal’s foreign minister said Nepalis were worried by Indian
absorption of Sikkim, which he described as “cleverly managed and deliberately
staged”. He also stressed that “sentiments on Sikkim ran very deep in Nepal”.
But sensing New Delhi growing unhappiness at such statements and
anti-India protests in Kathmandu, news on Sikkim slowly started disappearing
from Kathmandu’s major dailies and protests by students also came down in
subsequent months.
And when King Birendra met Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in New
Delhi on September 30, 1975 neither sides raised the issue of Sikkim during the
“frank and realistic” deliberations.
