8/15/2023 0 Comments Worst supreme court decisions 2013![]() Meanwhile, the women also faced pressure from their “well-wishers” who blamed them for the continued hostility between Hindus and Muslims in Muzaffarnagar and kept asking them to reach a compromise with the accused. Women should not let society shame them.īy Aafreen*, Rape survivor Pressure to ‘compromise’ I had a passion, a stubborn streak to see my case through. I want to tell other women to keep fighting their fight. The other six cases were assigned to fast-track courts but constant delays plagued them. One of the women withdrew her case after her son was allegedly threatened by the perpetrators. “The Supreme Court in March 2014 itself issued specific directions for providing security, compensation, as well as investigation and trial of the rape cases,” New Delhi-based lawyer Vrinda Grover, who represented the seven women in the top court, told Al Jazeera. For five years, the trials in the cases did not move due to one or the other application filed by the accused. The other six women assaulted during the Muzaffarnagar riots also went to the top court. That is when the pursuit of justice got delayed, and threats and intimidation began, she told Al Jazeera. ![]() They went to the Supreme Court, which in February 2014 ordered the police to file charges against the three men accused of raping Aafreen. “They told me I had come one month later, so my case is false. But the police in Uttar Pradesh refused to register their complaint. The couple decided to fight the case in a court of law. It was here that she finally gathered the courage to tell her husband she was raped by three men. The attackers – 62-year-old Maheshvir Prakash and Sikander Malik, 37 – were sentenced to 20 years in jail by a Muzaffarnagar court on May 9, while the third accused, Kuldeep Singh, died in 2020 of health issues.Īfter her home was burned down and looted in the riots, Aafreen lived in a relief camp for eight months. Her husband, a tailor by profession, stitched clothes for them. I begged them to stop, but they kept abusing me,” she told Al Jazeera.Īafreen knew the accused. “The men said they would kill my son if I moved. Her dash to the nearby fields to protect herself failed. She was at home with the infant son when some men reached her doorstep. On September 8, 2013, Aafreen’s husband had taken the elder of their two sons to a doctor. “I had belief in Allah and myself,” she added. So when Yogi came back to power in 2022, I was worried what would happen with my case,” she said. The party also won the regional polls in 2017 with a thumping majority.Įxperts say the BJP’s dominance in the state and at the federal level slowed the process of justice, frustrating the Muzaffarnagar victims.Īafreen told Al Jazeera the Uttar Pradesh government withdrew cases against BJP leaders accused of making inflammatory speeches during the violence. In the crucial general elections in 2014 that brought Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power, the BJP won 71 of the 80 seats in the state. The Muzaffarnagar riots deepened the fissures between the two communities and helped the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) polarise voters in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. Rights groups say the number of dead was higher. More than 60 people – most of them Muslims – were killed and nearly 60,000 displaced from their ancestral homes. ![]() ![]() The incident triggered large-scale rioting between Hindus and Muslims for two weeks and even spread to the neighbouring Shamli district. Minutes later, the two men who stabbed the Muslim man were caught by a mob and beaten to death. The violence began on Augafter a 29-year-old Muslim man was stabbed to death over allegations of harassing a Hindu girl. Saif*, her 37-year-old husband, has kept his phone on silent mode for a few days now.Īafreen was among at least seven women who alleged they were raped during the riots in Muzaffarnagar, a district in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, in 2013. “People from the village and other parts of Muzaffarnagar kept calling my husband and asking him why he did not tell them it was his wife’s case,” she said. So people who had no idea this was my case got to know,” Aafreen told Al Jazeera, adding that she feels more vulnerable than before. “Someone let my name slip out while talking about me here in Muzaffarnagar. Worse, her decade-long fight for justice – that should have brought her a sense of closure – is not over yet. Muzaffarnagar, India – It has been three weeks since two men accused of gang-raping a woman in 2013 were jailed for 20 years – a rare sentencing for sexual assault during a communal riot in India.Ĭongratulatory calls to celebrate the courage and requests to interview the rape survivor, 35-year-old Aafreen*, have ebbed since. ![]()
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