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Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in India on July 23rd, 2012
Rioting Maruti Workers Face Murder Charges After Manager Death
Bloomberg News
July 19, 2012
Security staff survey damage to a factory building caused by rioting workers at Maruti Suzuki India Ltd’s Manesar plant, near New Delhi. Photographer: Sanjit Das/Bloomberg
Indian authorities threatened to charge all 3,000 Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (MSIL) union workers at a plant after a riot that the labor union says began when a supervisor insulted an employee because of his caste.
Authorities will press charges of murder and attempted murder against all rioting workers at Maruti’s Manesar plant because they engaged in a mob attack that led to a person’s death, Maheswar Dayal, deputy commissioner of police, said in an interview yesterday. The police have arrested 99 workers and deployed 1,200 officers to secure the area, Director General of Police Ranjiv Singh Dalal said. Indian police occupied the suspended factory, which accounts for about 40 percent of Maruti’s total capacity, as they begin investigating the company’s most violent labor clash. Maruti and Suzuki Motor Corp. (7269) shares tumbled as the violence revived concerns about recurring labor disputes at the Indian carmaker, which suffered through a 33-day labor strike last year that drove down profit.
“I think it may take 8-to-10 days to resume operations at Manesar,” said Umesh Karne, an analyst with BRICS Securities Ltd. in Mumbai. “The concern is that with this shutdown, the majority of Maruti’s diesel car production may be hit as the Swift and DZire’s diesel models are made at Manesar.” A person was burnt to death and at least 70 managers at the factory were injured, K.K. Sindhu, police commissioner for the Gurgaon district, said in a phone interview. Maruti identified the deceased as Awanish Kumar Dev, a human resources general manager. Suzuki, which owns a majority stake in the Indian carmaker, said production facilities weren’t damaged by this week’s riot.
‘Crazy Scene’
“This is a crazy scene of violence,” Dalal said. “There are skirmishes between workers and management everywhere, but this kind of violence will not be tolerated.” At the factory, located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of New Delhi, trucks rolled in yesterday carrying police, who formed a security cordon around the plant. Two dozen private guards manned the gates of the closed factory, which only had police inside. Maruti shares tumbled 8.9 percent, its biggest drop in almost two years, to 1,117.30 rupees in Mumbai. Suzuki fell to its lowest close since February 2009 in Tokyo, dropping 3.8 percent to 1,451 yen. Both Maruti and the union blamed each other for the incident.
Caste Insult
According to Maruti, the dispute began July 18 after a worker beat up a supervisor on the shop floor. The workers’ union then prevented management from taking disciplinary action, blocking managers from leaving the factory after work, Maruti Suzuki said. Workers attacked managers after talks to resolve the dispute failed, with workers setting property on fire, ransacking offices and damaging facilities, according to the statement. Two Japanese executives were hospitalized, though neither is in critical condition, said Ei Mochizuki, a Tokyo-based spokesman at Suzuki. Damages were restricted to offices, not production facilities, Mochizuki said. The workers’ union said it was keen to have a dialogue with the company to resolve the matter and that workers were attacked by bouncers working for Maruti while discussions were ongoing with guild leaders.
Pointing Fingers
The incident started after a supervisor abused a worker and made derogatory remarks about his lower caste, known as Dalit, Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union President Ram Meher Singh said in an e-mailed statement. The company suspended the worker instead of taking action against the supervisor, Singh said. Maruti spokesman Puneet Dhawan couldn’t be reached by telephone and didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the labor union’s statement. Production at the factory, which makes Maruti Suzuki’s Swift compact cars, had to be halted, the company said. Output at the larger Gurgaon plant continued normally, it said.
The company’s factory in Manesar, built in 2007, has a capacity to produce 550,000 cars annually, about 40 percent of Maruti’s total capacity of 1.45 million cars, according to the company’s website. Manesar is 25 kilometers south of Gurgaon. The company is building a third unit at Manesar that is due to be completed in 2013, with a capacity to produce 250,000 additional units.
Industrial Hub
In October, a labor strike in Manesar halted output of Swift compact cars. Workers also staged strikes at parts maker Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd., causing production to be halted at Maruti’s factory in Gurgaon, also near the capital. The strike ended after an agreement was reached between management, workers and the state government. The strike cost the company more than 40,000 units of production, Maruti said.
The Manesar-Gurgaon region is an industrial hub that is home to factories of Hero MotoCorp Ltd. (HMCL), Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt., and auto parts suppliers Sona Koyo Steering Systems, and Rico Auto Industries Ltd. (RAI). In the past few years, there have been strikes at factories belonging to Rico, Honda and Hero as workers stopped work to demand higher pay and permanent employee status for contract employees. In 2008, the managing director of Graziano Trasmissioni India Ltd. was beaten to death after a group of dismissed employees turned violent, police said.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/19/maruti-unrest-manesar-factory-idINDEE86I02320120719
India’s Maruti shares sink after riot shuts car plant
(Reuters) – Manesar, Haryana | Jul 19, 2012
A deadly riot at a factory of Maruti Suzuki (MRTI.NS) shut the plant on Thursday and inflicted the biggest loss on its share price in almost two years. Hundreds of police secured the 550,000-vehicle per year factory in Manesar, Haryana, and arrested 90 people after a mob tore through the plant on Wednesday, smashing property and burning parts of the facility beyond repair. On Thursday, police combed through CCTV footage and interviewed witnesses as they searched for those responsible for the violence, in which a manager was killed and scores of employees were injured.
“We saw fire coming out of a nearby office and gradually it spread,” said a senior company official, who declined to be named. “(Workers) destroyed company-owned and our own cars. Police had to escort us out,” he said, speaking from a hospital after treatment for head and rib injuries and a broken hand. Labour unrest at the factory, where the union has accused India’s biggest car manufacturer of anti-worker and anti-union activities, cost the company more than $500 million in lost production in 2011. The factory, which accounts for around a third of Maruti’s total output, will remain closed on Friday because of the investigations, Suzuki Motor Corp (7269.T), which controls the carmaker, said in a statement.
Shares in Maruti, whose sales fell 11 percent in the fiscal year to March, partly as a result of the protracted strikes, fell 8.9 percent on Thursday, their biggest daily percentage drop since July 26, 2010. Suzuki shares closed down 3.8 percent in Tokyo, at their lowest level since February 2009. Wednesday’s trouble flared after a disciplinary incident against one employee. Company officials say workers began to attack senior management during discussions, while the union said its representatives were attacked first. Human resources manager Awanish Kumar Dev was burned to death during the riot, and the Japanese manager of the factory was also attacked, the company said.
“Armed with iron rods and door beams of cars, the mob spread out in groups in the factory area and targeted supervisors, managers and executives… rendering many of their victims bleeding and unconscious,” Maruti said in a statement, adding that it was cooperating with police and government authorities in the investigation.
SPECIAL TEAM
The Haryana government has formed a special team to probe the riot, with officers trawling through footage from the factory and interviewing managers and workers’ representatives. “There will be a thorough investigation. It is a very serious matter,” Haryana police spokesman S.A.S. Zaidi told Reuters. “The investigation circle is very big.” Ei Mochizuki, a Tokyo-based spokesman for Suzuki Motor Corp, said two Japanese staff had been hospitalised after the riot. Iron rods and other sharp tools lay scattered outside the factory gate on Thursday, next to a burned out security building, as 1,200 police officers secured the site, around 40 km (25 miles) south of New Delhi.
Fifty management personnel and 9 police officers were injured in the clashes, said Maheshwar Dayal, deputy commissioner of police in Gurgaon. “We will make more arrests soon,” he told reporters outside the factory. Those arrested could be charged with murder, attempted murder and arson, said K.K. Sindhu, commissioner of police in Gurgaon. Maruti and the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU) said the violence stemmed from a disciplinary incident involving one employee.
“To resolve the issue amicably, members of the senior management met the union. During the talks, the workers attacked the members of the senior management, executives and managers,” Maruti said in a statement late on Wednesday. MSWU president Ram Meher accused the company of “anti-worker and anti-union activities” in a statement on Thursday. The union is keen to talk with the company and government officials to resolve the dispute, Meher added.
Maruti HR executive beaten, burned alive
Hindustan Times
Manesar/Gurgaon, July 19, 2012
The body found at carmaker Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar factory after the mob violence on Wednesday was identified as that of senior human resource executive Awanish Kumar Dev, 51. Dev was assaulted with iron rods and left unconscious to be burnt alive, the police said. The post-mortem on Thursday revealed that Dev suffered 100% burns and his legs were fractured. He is survived by his wife Superna Prasad, who works with the defence ministry, and a son who is a class 12 student.
Hospital staff move the covered body of Awanish Kumar Dev, human resources manager at Maruti Suzuki plant in Manesar, from a hospital morgue in Gurgaon. Reuters
An eyewitness told HT that workers assaulted Dev when negotiations over the suspension of a worker were taking place in the conference room. “A mob of workers barged into the conference room where talks were underway and started assaulting the executives. Dev was trapped and assaulted by iron roads and left to be burnt in the room,” said labour contractor Rakesh Chaudhary.
Damaged furniture of Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant following a clash between between workers and management. PTI
The condition of an executive who is in the ICU of a private hospital is critical. More than 50 company executives, including two Japanese nationals, workers and policemen were injured in the rioting. The police have arrested 99 workers for the violence. The factory was shut on Thursday though the company claimed there was no damage to the production facility. “We will shortly announce our decision on the next steps with regard to resuming operations in these facilities,” the company said in a statement. “By any account this is not an industrial relations problem. Rather, it is an orchestrated act of mob violence at a time when operations had been normal over the past many months.”
Fearing arrest, most of the workers went underground but a statement from the Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union accused the company for perpetrating violence by calling in hundreds of bouncers on its payroll to attack the workers. “We have the workers’ and the company’s welfare in mind and have worked towards it after the resolution of the dispute last year and to blame the current violence on us is unjust,” the statement said. Meanwhile, the Japanese embassy issued a statement deploring the violence that led to Dev’s death.
Riot Hits Big India Auto Maker
July 19, 2012,
A Maruti Suzuki plant was closed after a fire and a workers’ riot.
NEW DELHI — India’s largest auto maker, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., was hit by violence as workers at one of its auto factories attacked supervisors and started a fire that killed a company official and injured nine policemen as well as nearly 100 managers, including two Japanese expatriates. Wednesday’s riot left parts of the assembly plant charred and strewn with glass from smashed windows and guarded by about 1,200 police called in to prevent any recurrence of the violence. Police said they intend to charge rioters in the death of a plant human resources manager. A Maruti spokesman said the unrest began Wednesday after the workers’ union demanded the reinstatement of a worker who had been suspended for beating up a supervisor. An injured executive at the hospital where he was being treated described the attack as unprovoked.
“The workers grabbed whatever they could, split up in small groups and attacked us,” he said. The Maruti executive, who declined to be identified, suffered a broken elbow and injuries to his head, ribs, and legs. In a statement, the company insisted the incidents were “not an industrial relations problem in the nature of management-worker differences over issues of wages or working conditions,” but an “orchestrated act of mob violence.” Police have said workers who participated face murder or attempted murder charges. Workers involved couldn’t be contacted. The plant employs 3,200 assembly workers, about half permanent and half contract workers. Intermittent strikes at the local unit of Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp. have highlighted the tense relationship between the company’s management and the workers. The latest incidents follow a string of protests that hit the same factory in Manesar, in the northern state of Haryana, for much of last year.
The strikes aren’t unique to Maruti and walkouts involving disputes over wages and working conditions at several companies have struck other companies in the world’s second-fastest growing major economy, including Nestlé India Ltd., Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., Coal India Ltd., Bosch Ltd. and Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Ltd. Shares in Maruti, India’s largest car maker by sales, slumped 8.9% on Thursday to close at 1,117.30 rupees ($20.20) on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The slide was the steepest loss in nearly two years. A prolonged shutdown at the Manesar plant would hurt Maruti as the company makes its highest-selling diesel cars—the Swift hatchback and the Swift Dzire sedan—there. It also makes the SX4 sedan and the A-Star small car in Manesar, where about 1,700 cars are produced per day. Partly because of labor unrest, in the fiscal year through March, Maruti’s net profit fell 29% to 16.35 billion rupees. Its vehicle sales fell nearly 11% to 1.13 million units.
Umesh Karne, an analyst at Mumbai-based Brics Securities Ltd., said the impact on Maruti will depend on how long the Manesar factory remains shut. “Looking at the current situation, it appears that the factory will remain closed” for at least two to three days, Mr. Karne said. “Even if the factory reopens, there will be simmering tension between workers and the management. So, it is better for both the parties to sit down and talk.” D.L. Sachdev, national secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress, said in a conference call with analysts that Maruti’s contract workers are paid about one-third of that of regular workers. He declined to elaborate.
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Nikhil Gulati/The Wall Street Journal
People outside the Maruti Suzuki factory in Manesar, Thursday.
“The discontent among regular and contract workers has been going on. Unfortunately, the management hasn’t been able to resolve the issue,” he said. The Haryana police have taken control of the Manesar plant and have set up a special team to investigate the violent incidents, Maheshwar Dayal, deputy commissioner of police in charge of crime, told reporters. Mr. Dayal said 88 workers have been arrested so far. Maruti said the dead worker is Awanish Kumar Dev, general manager in charge of human resources at the Manesar plant. “Such acts of violence—preplanned, unprovoked and gruesome—have implications beyond one company or region,” the company said. “They are negative trigger for existing companies and regions across the country, as also for prospective investors and job seekers.”
Police have formed a special team to investigate violence at a factory of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. in the northern state of Haryana, that has led to the death of one company official and injured nine policemen as well as 50 workers, senior police officials said Thursday. Maheshwar Dayal, deputy commissioner of police in charge of crime, said the team, comprising six inspectors, will be headed by Assistant Commissioner of Police Ravindra Tomar. Mr. Tomar was injured when a mob of 3,000 workers attacked the police Wednesday.
Mr. Dayal also said the dead worker is believed to be Avinash Kumar, the human resources head of the Maruti factory at Manesar in Haryana. Another official in the office of the Gurgaon commissioner of police and D. L. Sachdev, national secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress, said also that the dead worker is an official of the Maruti management. “The police have taken control of the Maruti plant,” the police official, who declined to be named, said.
http://www.firstpost.com/business/unanswered-questions-in-marutis-manesar-violence-383646.html
Unanswered questions in Maruti’s Manesar violence
New Delhi: Fearing for their lives and careers, the leaders of the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU) at the Manesar facility have gone underground. Through most of the day, union general secretary Sarabjeet Singh’s phone remained switched off even as president Ram Mehar Singh mailed a signed statement this afternoon alleging that the Maruti management had unleashed bouncers who beat up workers.
It is interesting to note that though the violent clashes on Wednesday (18 July) may not have been triggered by impending wage negotiations, the workers under MSWU have been demanding a five-fold hike! Since a permanent worker takes home about Rs 18,000 a month (including perks), this would mean each worker has demanded close to Rs 90,000 every month in wages! Maruti officials said that it was a normal practice for workers to inflate their wage demands and then negotiate with much lesser wages. But even then, a semi-literate shop floor worker drawing close to Rs 1 lakh every month is surprising.
Assault weapons? Image courtesy MSI
Also, another question begs an answer: how did the workers, who were apparently working peacefully till the altercation began with a supervisor, suddenly turn into a blood-thirsty mob? Various versions of what happened yesterday abound but company officials alleged that perhaps the workers came prepared to unleash violence. These officials alleged that when the altercation between the supervisor and one worker remained unresolved, workers rushed to executives’ cars parked outside and quickly extracted what is known as a side-impact beam from the doors of these cars. Though this beam is meant to lessen the impact of a collision in the car, workers – who themselves stand on the shopfloor assembling car doors and are quite familiar with car parts – used it to hit management executives on their heads.
Another version points to workers actually getting steel rods and lathis in tractor trollies inside the factory premises when the situation got ugly towards the evening. No one was able to explain how tractor trollies laden with lathis and rods could enter the factory without guards intervening. Did the leaders of the previous union, which led a successful strike in three rounds last year, instigate the violence yesterday? Company officials said no outsider was involved and all the violence was unleashed by workers who were already inside the plant. But there is every possibility that national trade unions, affiliated to various political parties, would jump in and participate in this standoff between workers and management, just like last year.
These are pics of a safety door beam used in cars to protect occupants. They were removed from material trolleys and used on Senior managers
Investor sources told Firstpost that some Mumbai-based equity analysts held a conference-call with the AITUC General Secretary DL Sachdeva on their concerns over labour trouble at Maruti. During this call, Sachdeva—who is not overtly connected with the present situation—said that the treatment of contract workers by Maruti was not fair. He apparently said that there were 3,000 contract workers at Manesar (against 2,000-and-odd permanent workers) who are being paid a third of the wages a permanent worker draws. The contract workers are also liable to be fired at will and these twin issues have not allowed any peace to workers since the last strike. On their part, analysts expressed concern that no permanent solution has been found to Maruti’s labour troubles till date.
Also, by the evening today, there were unconfirmed rumours of two Japanese officials of Maruti having succumbed to their injuries sustained in yesterday’s violence (or being in a critical state) but the company denied this, saying they are injured and are being treated in hospital. An HR Manager, an Indian, has already succumbed to his injuries. And contrary to earlier reports, widespread arson has meant that a large part of the Manesar assembly shopfloor is gutted. So even if relations between workers and management were to normalise shortly, repairing the assembly shopfloor could take a long time. Maruti manufactures its second best-selling model—the Swift—at Manesar and its festival season hopes could well be dashed unless production commences swiftly.
Maruti unrest: 100 workers arrested; SIT begins probe
Manesar: July 20, 2012,
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been constituted to probe labour unrest and fire incident in Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant, in which General Manager Human Resources was burnt alive and 100 employees were injured. The SIT, headed by Assistant Commissioner of Police Ravinder Tomar and including six inspector ranked officials, will probe the incideat Manesar plant, Haryana Police said Thursday. A tense calm prevailed on Thursday as the plant was shut following large scale arson in which Awanish Kumar Dev, HR GM, was burnt beyond recognition while 100 others were injured. Kumar’s body was identified by his family Thursday and the company alleged that the violence was an orchestrated act of mob, which has implications beyond one company or region.
100 employees, who were arrested, were produced before a local magistrate who remanded them to 14 days judicial custody. They have been accused of various charges including rioting with weapons, murder, attempt to murder, unlawful assembly, assault and trespass. The violence in which several executives, managers and supervisors were attacked and office facilities, security office and fire safety section gutted arose out of an alleged casteist remarks by an official against a worker. The worker allegedly beat him up following which he was suspended and that triggered the large scale violence. Haryana government and police pledged to take stringent action against those responsible for violence. Maruti Suzuki said the violence is a negative negative trigger for existing companies and regions across the country as also for prospective investors and job seekers.
The firm, which witnessed strikes on three occasions last year, has already announced plans to set up a new plant in Gujarat at an investment of Rs 4,000 crore, a move which was interpreted as coming against the backdrop of violence in the region. Gurgaon, an industrial hub neighbouring the national capital, was the scene of large scale violence by workers and outside forces at the Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India’s unit and subsequent strikes in other units. Rejecting the company’s charge, Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU) accused the management of calling in hundreds of bouncers on its payroll to attack the workers. It said instead of taking action against the supervisor who was involved in a scuffle with a shop floor worker “the management immediately suspended the worker concerned without any investigation”.
“When the workers along with union representatives went to meet HR to demand against the supervisor and revoke the unjust suspension of the worker, the HR officials flatly refused to hear our arguments, and it was in no mood to resolve the issue amicably,” MSWU President Ram Meher said in a statement. The union, however, said it was ready for a dialogue with the management and wanted to resolve the issue amicably. Taking a serious view of the violence, Haryana Chief Secretary P K Chaudhery said a special investigating team has been formed under Assistant Commissioner of Police, Gurgaon, Ravinder Tomar, to investigate the matter. He gave an assurance that no one would be spared for taking law into his hands and resorting to violence.
Haryana DGP Ranjeev Singh Dalal visited the plant and said the police has taken over the entire plant to maintain law and order. “We are going to take stern action against the guilty,” he told reporters, adding nothing can justify this kind of violence. He said the police have been on the field since last night to nab the culprits. But the ring leaders have run away and were absconding. Dalal said he would camp in Gurgaon till the matter is resolved. An anguished India Inc condemned the violence in the Maruti Suzuki premises and said frequent incidents of labour unrest in Gurgaon-Manesar area are compelling industrial units to migrate to other states.
“Assocham expresses its anguish and strongly condemns the violence at Maruti Suzuki premises,” its Secretary General D S Rawat said. Echoing similar views, CII’s Deputy Chairman (Northern Region) Jayant Davar said in Jaipur that the violence at the Maruti plant “is extremely unfortunate”. However, he added that in the long run, the incident would not have major impact on industrial environment. As Maruti Suzuki India share price tanked over 9 per cent, investors lost Rs 3,183 crore in a single day in the stock market today.
PTI
19 July 2012
The dangers of the mob in India
The teenager was assaulted on a busy road
In the heart of Guwahati, a bustling city in the north-eastern state of Assam, a mob of men assault a teenage girl coming out of a bar as a journalist records it on his video camera and people gawk. Gloating before the camera, the mob paws her, tries to strip her and burns her with cigarettes. The police arrive late – as is usually the case – and rescue the girl.
Last week, India came to know of this shocking act of depravity only after video of the assault went viral and the mainstream media picked it up. Predictable outrage gripped the airwaves and the social media. The police made their first, feeble arrests, though most of the attackers are still at large. There were allegations that the journalist, belonging to a local news channel, had incited the mob – he quit his job after denying the charge. The editor has now quit his job too.
Such attacks are becoming distressingly common in 21st Century India. Earlier this month a female lawmaker from Assam’s ruling Congress party was assailed by a 100-strong mob, apparently for marrying a Muslim man without divorcing her first husband. (Assam has a steep rate of crimes against women – a shocking 36.9 per 100,000 a year, against the national average of 18.9). On New Year’s eve in Gurgaon, an upscale suburb outside Delhi, several women coming out of a pub were assaulted by a group of men. And in Calcutta, a girl was picked up from outside a pub and raped, prompting the authorities to order a midnight shutdown on nightlife.
There could be many reasons why young women are becoming targets of attacks in India’s big cities. More and more women are stepping out of their homes to go to work. Many believe that such assaults are a backlash by a patriarchal and stiflingly male-dominated society unable to cope with the sight of a confident, empowered woman with a mind of her own. “You drink liquor!” the Guwahati mob barked at the girl as they went after her. More pointedly, such attacks also point to the rising tensions between two Indias – the India of the privileged and upwardly mobile reaping the benefits of a growing economy, and a darker India of urban malcontents, the jobless, lonely migrants, all seething in resentment even at the sight of young people going to a bar to have a drink.
These are the people who largely comprise “the mob” in India. It is a toxic throng of chauvinists and malcontents that revels in acting the vigilante and the moral police at the same time. The mob usually picks on soft targets – women emerging from night clubs, courting young couples. They are also known to mete out rough justice – people caught thieving, for example, are instantly lynched. Even though they represent a minority and most Indians abhor their behaviour, the “mob” also believes not much will happen to them if they are caught – the police are dysfunctional, laws are weak, witnesses are fickle and outrage is ephemeral.
Protecting women – and law-abiding citizens – from such acts need serious institutional reforms to the way India’s police and laws operate. Real issues are being trivialised and debate in India has degenerated into shrill headline-grabbing histrionics. What about a relentless campaign for a stronger police and firmer laws, argue campaigners – something India has been debating without any result for years? From democracy to mobocracy would be a dreadful descent.
—http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-18/maruti-suzuki-turns-violent-disruption-vehicle-output
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Unanswered questions in Maruti’s Manesar violence Firstpost – 21 minutes ago The scale of the violence unleashed at Maruti’s Manesar plant suggests that there was more to it than meets the eye. Rioting Maruti Workers Face Murder Charges Businessweek |
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Maruti unrest: 100 workers arrested; SIT begins probe Zee News – 12 minutes ago A tense calm prevailed on Thursday as the plant was shut following large scale arson in which Awanish Kumar Dev, HR GM, was burnt beyond … |
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Maruti HR man beaten, burned alive Hindustan Times – 9 hours ago The body found at carmaker Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar factory after the mob violence on Wednesday was identified as that of senior human … |
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After Tata Nano, Narendra Modi to convince Maruti Suzuki bosses to … Economic Times – 9 hours ago Modi will meet senior execs of Suzuki in Japan next week to persuade them to shift the entire ops of Maruti Suzuki to his state from Haryana. Modi to pitch for Suzuki factory during Japan visit Business Standard |
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Sensex, Nifty opens flat; RIL, Maruti, DRL down Economic Times – 5 minutes ago The 30-share Sensex slipped as much as 0.1 percent early on Friday led by losses in Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank and Infosys. |
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Maruti: SIT to probe Manesar violence after official killed Hindustan Times – 12 hours ago The Haryana chief secretary PK Chaudhery today said that a special investigation team had been formed under the assistant commissioner of … |
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Lack of trust to blame for Maruti unrest IBNLive.com – 11 hours ago The situation remains tense at Maruti’s Manesar plant after a tussle took place between workers and the management on Wednesday. |
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Maruti Suzuki clash: Workers charged with murder and more Indian Express – 14 hours ago Manesar/Gurgaon: Maruti Suzuki’s General Manager Human Resources was charred to death in the violence in its car plant here allegedly triggered by workers … |
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Maruti’s Manesar plant GM(HR) burned to death, 91 workers … Economic Times – 13 hours ago Maruti Suzuki’s GM(HR) was burned to death in the violence in its car plant here allegedly triggered by workers yesterday. |
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| Maruti Suzuki 01.jpg 79K View Share Download |
| Maruti Suzuki 02.jpg 79K View Share Download |
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in India on July 20th, 2012
American people are intrinsically un-biased to the core. They like to hear both sides of the story. These days there is a tsunami of anti-Pakistan rhetoric in the news and electronic media catalyzed by Indian and Zionist lobbies.
It has a two pronged approach.
THE FIRST PRONG OF ANT-PAKISTAN PROPAGANDA IN THE US ELECTRONIC AND WRITTEN PAPERS
PAKISTAN IS NOT INSECURE OR MILITARILY UNSTABLE
Here is the answer: Sown below are the insignia’s or patches of known standing Divisions and Corps of Pakistan Army. This list does not include those Divisions or Corps which protect Pakistans’ Nuclear and strategic assests. We do not know the size of SPDs, the Strategic Plans divisions or Corps or the newly formed Special Services (SSG) division. Pakistan Army has several Independent Brigades, which are not listed. Also, not listed are possibly million men, Civil Armed Forces, Police and Rangers Special Forces, Pakistan Marines, the various Levies and Scouts, and the Janbaz and Mujahid forces.
A WARNING TO ALL ILL INTENTIONED ADVENTURING ARMIES OR NATIONS
You may read or hear about the propensities of
Pakistanis to bicker, fight, kill, bomb and blow-up, terrorize, and do all kinds of horrible things, BUT, when it comes to defending Pakistan, All 180 million Pakistanis are one. Let all comers be warned, In time of an external attack on its nuclear or strategic sites, there will be at least 75 million able bodied women, men, and children suicide squads supporting Pakistan Armed Forces. Therefore, as a Pakistani would say in American slang, “I am a BAD DUDE, Don’t Mess with Me. If Afghanistan, which starts with an “A,” is bad, then Pakistan starts with “P,”a letter way down in the alphabets, so Pakistanis are much meaner than the Afghans! Ask our neighbours, the Indians.
Pakistanis beat back over 1 million soldiers of Indian Army on the Western Front in 1965. We can do it again!
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THE SECOND PRONG OF ANT-PAKISTAN PROPAGANDA IN THE US ELECTRONIC AND WRITTEN PAPERS : |
2. The Pakistan Army is supporting the Taliban, who are attacking US troops.
Fortunately for Pakistan, Pentagon, and the CIA, who know facts on the ground know that both of the above assertions are far from the truth.
EVEN THE MOST RABIDLY ANTI-PAKISTAN NEWSPAPER IN US THE NYT
NEW YORK TIMES, Newspaper gives a headline which negates the canard that Pakistan is supporting the Taliban. Or, the pea-brained arm chair strategists in US contending that “Pakistan is asking Taliban to kill Pak Army soldiers,” a preposterous idea.
From NEW YORK TIMES
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A relatively rare cross-border raid into Pakistan by Afghan-based Taliban militants killed at least 13 Pakistani soldiers, the military said Monday
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THE HARBINGERS OF ANTI-PAKISTAN PROPAGANDA
Zionist Jews pock mark the internet. Sometimes, the hide their identity under Anglo-Saxon names. Other times, the blatantly show their bitter hatred and animosity against Pakistan, a Muslim Nuclear Power. Though, most Pakistanis are naive about the extent of Zionist cyberspace and media tsunami against Pakistan. But, young Pakistanis are now begining to pick up the gauntlet. In the fore-front are Pakistani boys and girls from English medium schoolas and colleges, who can give a jaw breaking reply to Internet “Kikes.”
Pakistanis, while reading internet articles on Pakistan, should focus on the the name of the author. Most likely, it would also be listed concomitantly in the Tel Aviv or Brooklyn, N.Y. Phone Directory. In U.S. Congress, almost all the Zionist or Evangelical Christians members are virulently anti-Pakistani from Dana Rohrbacher, a charlatan, to the Indophile Gary Ackerman.
To cite some example:
Gary Ackerman promotes anti-Pakistan propaganda from his own Congressional website:
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Pakistan is a ‘black hole’ for US aid
May 17, 2012 “Pakistan is like a black hole for American aid,” Gary Ackerman, top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs panel on the Middle East and South Asia said during a hearing Wednesday.”Our tax dollars go in, our diplomats go in – sometimes, our aid professionals go in – sometimes, our hopes go in, our prayers go in,” he said. “Nothing good ever comes out.”
HINDUS IN NEW YORK HAVE LET LOOSE A TSUNAMI OF PROPAGANDA AGINST PAKISTAN:
HERE IS AN EXAMPLE:
Pakistan is a ‘black hole’ for US aidThursday, May 17th 2012, 09:46 AM Washington, May 17 — US lawmakers of both Democratic and Republican parties have slammed the Obama administration’s request for $2.4 billion for Pakistan, calling it a “black hole” where the US has “sunk” $24 billion over the last decade. “Pakistan is like a black hole for American aid,” Gary Ackerman, top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs panel on the Middle East and South Asia said during a hearing Wednesday. “Our tax dollars go in, our diplomats go in – sometimes, our aid professionals go in – sometimes, our hopes go in, our prayers go in,” he said. “Nothing good ever comes out.” Alleging that Islamabad continues to pursue its national interest at America’s expense and that of its allies, Ackerman said: “Pakistan continues to shelter, directly support and sponsor terrorists.” “Officially acknowledging this indisputable fact might be grossly impolitic; but that doesn’t make it less true. American standing in Pakistani public opinion is terrible and getting worse,” he said. Similarly Republican Dana Rohrabacher blasted US support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who he said was taking “marching orders” from Pakistan. “We should cut Pakistan off of every cent because it has been used for evil purposes, including killing American troops,” he said. However, a State Department official testifying at the hearing suggested cutting off aid would be short-sighted. “Our current discussions with the Pakistanis on how best to pursue our common interests will take time to resolve, and it’s not easy right now to provide satisfying answers to some questions,” Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Daniel Feldman said in written testimony. But “the fact of the matter is, is that we’ve been able to kill more terrorists on Pakistani soil than just about any place else,” he said citing President Barack Obama’s words after the death of Osama bin Laden last May. “We could not have done that without Pakistani cooperation.” (Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected]) BUT,
These RSS and VHP Hindus and their Zionists cohorts will never succeed. Because…they have their plans and our main support lies in a promise of protection by the CEO of the Universe.
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Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in India on July 18th, 2012
[This article detailing Israel and India’s extensive military ties has an important omission. In its descriptions of the launch of a spy satellite by India with Israeli assistance. This is also help Israel spy on Iran, S.Arabia, UAE, Sudan, Syria, and Egypt. the article about India’s purchase of drone aircraft from Israel, does not mention the fact that these pilotless drones and the satellite are not just spying on Pakistani forces; they are being used to gather intelligence on the people’s uprising in Kashmir and the Maoist-led resistance of the adivasi people in eastern and central India to a massive assault of 200,000 troops called Operation Green Hunt.–ed]
by Isabelle Saint-Mézard, Le Monde Diplomatique
From antipathy to military cooperation–India and Israel: an unlikely alliance
India has the world’s third largest Muslim population, and political and economic ties with Arab nations. It is also buying weapons and military expertise from its new friend Israel.
India and Israel were born (in 1947 and 1948) through long and violent partition processes, from the ruins of the British empire. Both were caught up in inextricable armed conflicts. Yet this did not make for any particular affinity between the countries: rather the reverse.
From the 1920s onwards, the leaders of India’s nationalist movement sided with the Palestinian Arabs against British imperialism, opposing the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish state. India voted against the partition of Palestine at the UN General Assembly of 1947, and only recognised Israel in 1950. Until the 1980s it formed a bloc with the Arab countries at the UN and within the Non-aligned Movement, in defence of the Palestinian people’s right to a sovereign state.
India had its reasons: it was worried that the Muslim world would side with Pakistan over its claim to Kashmir; it was concerned about energy security (India depends largely on the Middle East for its oil); and in the late 1980s and 1990s, when it had a serious payments imbalance, it relied on money sent back home by the many expatriates working in the Gulf states .
But the gap between India and Israel has narrowed over the years. As early as the 1960s the two countries established secret military and intelligence contacts. Israel was willing to help the Indian army in its conflicts with China (in 1962) and Pakistan (in 1965 and 1971). In 1978, Israel’s foreign minister Moshe Dayan even made a secret trip to India to propose cooperation.
In 1992 New Delhi established formal diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv. The decision was facilitated by the end of the cold war and the Madrid Middle East conference of October 1991, which gave hopes for peace. But it was also prompted by India’s disappointment with the meagre results of its foreign policy: it had never managed to neutralise Pakistan’s influence among the Arab countries and its own position on Kashmir had been repeatedly condemned by resolutions of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
Diplomatic relations with Israel were initiated by the centre-left Indian National Congress (Congress Party) but it was the extremist Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in power between 1998 and 2004, which developed the partnership and gave it meaning. Suspicious of, if not hostile to, the Muslim world, the BJP did not hesitate to show its sympathy for Israel. Unlike the Congress Party, the BJP has never felt constrained by the opinion of India’s Muslim minority in its domestic policy. The post-9/11 situation strengthened the relationship as the BJP-led coalition government eagerly promoted the idea of liberal democracies forming a united front against Islamist terrorism. The BJP invited Israel’s prime minister Ariel Sharon to visit India in September 2003, to commemorate the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the US.
This led to the dream of a strategic triangle between Israel, India and the US, an idea first put forward on 8 May 2003 by Brajesh Mishra, then India’s national security adviser, in a speech at a dinner of the American Jewish Committee: “Our principal theme here today is a collective remembrance of the horrors of terrorism and a celebration of the alliance of free societies involved in combating this scourge. The US, India and Israel have all been prime targets of terrorism. They have to jointly face the same ugly face of modern day terrorism”. Later, representatives of the governments discussed defence and anti-terrorism issues. Meanwhile, a decisive rapprochement was taking place between pro-Indian and pro-Israeli pressure groups in Washington.
Congress in Power
After the Congress Party’s return to office at the head of a coalition government in 2004 there was less emphasis on the ideology, but the Indian-Israeli relationship was not fundamentally affected because it concerned the priority areas of defence and security.
The range of links has diversified and there is now collaboration in agriculture, tourism, science and technology. Although largely dependent on the diamond industry, which accounted for nearly 50% of all trade between the two countries in 2008, commercial exchanges between India and Israel rose in value from $200m in 1992 to $4bn in 2008. But defence remains the core of the cooperative relationship.
Israel’s defence industry relies on exports for its survival. Until the end of the 1990s most shipments were to China. But the US veto on the transfer of sensitive technologies to China forced Israel to look to other markets, including India. This proved fruitful as economic growth allowed India to finance its (considerable) requirements for defence equipment. India was looking for new suppliers, as Russian manufacturers were only able to fill part of the void left by the disappearance of its former Soviet suppliers. (Many Soviet production lines were dismantled or put out of action after 1991.) The US was also moving closer to India, which facilitated technology transfer.
The Phalcon radar systems developed by Israel Aerospace Industries for the Indian air force are a good example. Having forbidden their sale to China in 2000, the US authorised their sale to India. The conclusion New Delhi drew was that a rapprochement with Tel Aviv would give it access to technology the US was reluctant to export.
In a decade, Tel Aviv has become a leading supplier of arms to India, now its largest export market. The value of the contracts signed over the last 10 years is estimated at nearly $10bn. Flexibility and responsiveness are Israel’s great strengths. It was able to adapt right away to the needs of India’s armed forces (most of whose equipment is Soviet or Russian) and gained lucrative contracts for the modernisation of Russian equipment: tanks, aircraft carriers, helicopters and fighter aircraft have all been fitted with Israeli electronics; it was able to respond quickly when supplying the Indian army with munitions during the 1999 confrontation with Pakistan in Kashmir, the “Kargil crisis”.
Industrial cooperation has centred on surveillance radar and drone aircraft, and on missile systems. India and Israel signed a contract worth $1.1bn for three Phalcon radar systems in 2004. Cooperation on missiles began in 2001 with a contract worth $270m for a ship defence system based on Barak missiles. It reached a new level in January 2006 when the countries agreed to jointly develop a new generation of missiles. This brought Israel into competition with Russia, which was also jointly developing cruise missiles with India. In 2007, India and Israel unveiled a joint project worth $2.5bn for the development of a new air defence system based on Barak missiles, for use by the Indian air force and army.
Spy Satellites
Another area of cooperation is satellite imaging. In January 2008 India launched an advanced spy satellite on Israel’s behalf, capable of providing information on strategic installations in Iran. In April 2009 India launched its own spy satellite, acquired as a matter of urgency after the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008 that left 170 dead and revealed serious gaps in its territorial surveillance network. India also spent $600m on Israeli radar to strengthen the warning systems along its western seaboard.
Israel is certainly a privileged partner in India’s efforts to improve its territorial security systems. The countries are strengthening an already close cooperative relationship on counter-terrorism. Israel has helped India to build a barrier along the “line of control”, its de facto border with Pakistan; it has provided surveillance systems to prevent infiltration by Islamist militants and Israelis are among the few outside consultants to have visited the theatre of operations in Kashmir.
New Delhi, like most of the international community, still supports the creation of an independent and viable Palestinian state. But the crises between Israel and its neighbours have taught India to hedge its diplomatic bets. It tries to keep the relationship with Israel separate from the Middle East situation – to protect its cooperative relationship with Israel while taking care not to antagonise Arab countries. India’s official statements are carefully worded, condemning in turn the violence of the terrorist attacks against Israel and the brutality of the reprisals.
While moving closer to Israel, India also began to develop ties with Iran in the early 2000s. Before Ariel Sharon’s visit in September 2003, New Delhi had received the Iranian president Mohammad Khatami. Paradoxically, the rapprochement with Israel has given India new leverage in its Middle East policy: since they cannot be sure of India’s support, Middle East countries pay greater heed to Indian interests.
The relationship with Israel is a delicate matter for internal even more than external reasons: India needs to consider the feelings of its Muslim minority (14% of the population). It also has to take account of the left wing, heirs to the anti-imperialist tradition, who protest against any overtly pro-Israel policy. Indian decision-makers strive for discretion in their dealings with Israel, but maintaining a balance is much more difficult in times of crisis: during the Lebanon war of 2006, New Delhi at first confined itself to hesitant condemnation of Israel’s actions, then hardened its tone under pressure from the communist parties and Muslim voters. Exasperation eventually led the Indian parliament to the unanimous adoption of a resolution condemning the offensive.
At a diplomatic level, India’s hesitation over the Middle East is the result of a predictable polarisation between those who take the traditional pro-Arab position and those in favour of partnership with Israel. But it also reveals a fascination with Israel’s methods, which some in New Delhi would like to try against Pakistan.
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in India on July 17th, 2012
Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation
India
Trafficking
As of February 1998, there were 200 Bangladeshi children and women awaiting repatriation in different Indian shelters. (“Boys, rescued in India while being smuggled to become jockeys in camel races,” www.elsiglo.com, 19 February 1998)
India, along with Thailand and the Philippines, has 1.3 million children in its sex-trade centers. The children come from relatively poorer areas and are trafficked to relatively richer ones. (Soma Wadhwa, “For sale childhood,” Outlook, 1998)
In cross border trafficking, India is a sending, receiving and transit nation. Receiving children from Bangladesh and Nepal and sending women and children to Middle Eastern nations is a daily occurrence. (Executive Director of SANLAAP, Indrani Sinha, Paper on Globaliation and Human Rights”
India and Paksitan are the main destinations for children under 16 who are trafficked in south Asia. (Masako Iijima, “S. Asia urged to unite against child prostitution,” Reuters, 19 June 1998)
More than 40% of 484 prostituted girls rescued during major raids of brothels in Bombay in 1996 were from Nepal. (Masako Iijima, “S. Asia urged to unite against child prostitution,” Reuters, 19 June 1998)
In India, Karnataka, Andha Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu are considered “high supply zones” for women in prostitution. Bijapur, Belgaum and Kolhapur are common districts from which women migrate to the big cities, as part of an organised trafficking network. (Central Welfare Board, Meena Menon, “The Unknown Faces”)
Districts bordering Maharashtra and Karnataka, known as the “devadasi belt,” have trafficking structures operating at various levels. The women here are in prostitution either because their husbands deserted them, or they are trafficked through coercion and deception Many are devadasi dedicated into prostitution for the goddess Yellamma. In one Karnataka brothel, all 15 girls are devadasi. (Meena Menon, “The Unknown Faces”)
Hundreds, if not thousands, of Bangladeshi women and children are held in foreign prisons, jails, shelters and detention centers awaiting repatriation. Many have been held for years. In India, 26 women, 27 girls, 71 boys and 13 children of unknown gender are held in Lilua Shelter, Calcutta; Sheha Shelter, Calcutta; Anando Ashram, Calcutta; Alipur Children’s Home, Delhi; Nirmal Chaya Children’s Home, Delhi; Prayas Observation House for Boys; Delhi; Tihar Jail, Delhi; Udavam Kalanger, Bangalore; Umar Khadi, Bangaore; Kishalay, West Bengal; Kuehbihar, West Bengal and Baharampur, West Bengal. (Fawzia Karim Firoze and Salma Ali of the Bangladesh National Women Layer Association,” Bangladesh Country Paper: Law and Legislation”)
Women and children from India are sent to nations of the Middle East daily. Girls in prostitution and domestic service in India and the Middle East are tortured, held in virtual imprisonment, sexually abused, and raped. (Indrani Sinha, SANLAAP India, “Paper on Globalization and Human Rights”)
In Bombay, children as young as 9 are bought for up to 60,000 rupees, or US$2,000, at auctions where Arabs bid against Indian men who believe sleeping with a virgin cures gonorrhea and syphilis. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
160,000 Nepalese women are held in India’s brothels. (Executive Director of SANLAAP, Indrani Sinha, Paper on Globalization and Human Rights”)
Approximately 50,000, or half of the women in prostitution in Bombay, are trafficked from Nepal. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
The brothels of India hold between 100,000 and 160,000 Nepalese women and girls, 35 percent were taken on the false pretext of marriage or a good job. (Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Special Report on Violence Against Women, Gustavo Capdevila, IPS, 2 April 1997)
About 5,000-7,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked to India every day. 100,000-160,000 Nepalese girls are prostituted in brothels in India. About 45,000 Nepalese girls are in the brothels of Bombay and 40,000 in Calcutta. (Women’s groups in Nepal, ‘Trafficking in Women and Children: The Cases of Bangladesh, pp.8 & 9, UBINIG, 1995)
Calcutta is one of the important transit points for the traffickers for Bombay and to Pakistan. 99% women are trafficked out of Bangladesh through land routes along the border areas of Bangladesh and India, such as Jessore, Satkhira, and Rajshahi. (Trafficking in Women and Children: The Cases of Bangladesh, pp.18 & 19, UBINIG, 1995)
In shelters in India, there are 200 Bangladeshi women and children who have been trafficked awaiting repatriation. (http://www.webpage.com/hindu/daily/980220/03/03200004.htm, 19 February 1998)
Of the 5,000-7,000 Nepalese girls trafficked into India yearly, the average age over the past decade has fallen from 14-16 years old to 10-14 years old. (CATW – Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)
In Bombay, one brothel has only Nepalese women, who men buy because of their golden skin and docile personalities. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
2.5% of prostitutes in India are Nepalese, and 2.7% are Bangladeshi. (“Devadasi System Continues to Legitimise Prostitution: The Devadasi Tradition and Prostitution,” TOI, 4 December 1997)
Some Indian men believe that it is good luck to have sex with scalp-eczema afflicted prostitutes. Infants with the condition, called “pus babies,” are sold by their parents to brothels for a premium. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
70% of students surveyed at a wealthy high school seek a career in organized crime, citing their reasoning as “good money and good fun.” (surveyed student, [Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996]
Methods and Techniques of Traffickers
Every year between 5,000 and 7,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked into the red light districts in Indian cities. Many of the girls are barely 9 or 10 years old. 200,000 to over 250,000 Nepalese women and girls are already in Indian brothels. The girls are sold by poor parents, tricked into fraudulent marriages, or promised employment in towns only to find themselves in Hindustan’s brothels. They’re locked up for days, starved, beaten, and burned with cigarettes until they learn how to service up to 25 clients a day. Some girls go through ‘training’ before being initiated into prostitution, which can include constant exposure to pornographic films, tutorials in how to ‘please’ customers, repeated rapes. (Soma Wadhwa, “For sale childhood,” Outlook, 1998)
Trafficking in women and girls is easy along the 1,740 mile-long open border between India and Nepal. Trafficking in Nepalese women and girls is less risky than smuggling narcotics and electronic equipment into India. Traffickers ferry large groups of girls at a time without the hassle of paperwork or threats of police checks. The procurer-pimp-police network makes the process even smoother. Bought for as little as Rs (Nepalese) 1,000, girls have been known to fetch up to Rs 30,000 in later transactions. Police are paid by brothel owners to ignore the situation. Girls may not leave the brothels until they have repaid their debt, at which time they are sick, with HIV and/or tuberculosis, and often have children of their own. (Soma Wadhwa, “For sale childhood,” Outlook, 1998)
The areas used by traffickers to procure women and girls are the isolated districts of Sindhupalchow, Makwanpur, Dhading and Khavre, Nepal where the population is largely illiterate. (Soma Wadhwa, “For sale childhood,”Outlook, 1998)
Health and Well-being
Of the 218 Nepalese girls rescued in February 1996 from a Bombay police raid, 60-70% of them were HIV positive. (Tim McGirk “Nepal’s Lost Daughters, ‘India’s soiled goods,” Nepal/India News, 27 January 1997)
Cases
Activists discovered inter-state trafficking in teenaged girls from poor families in 24 Parganas North districts. More than 300 teenagers from Deganga, Harwa and Bashirhat may have been lured by false marriages to Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab. 32 victims from six villages have been identified. After the girl was taken from her home village she would be sold for Rs 2,500 to Rs 10,000, depending on the number of middlemen involved. Those who escaped said the girls were watched all the time and not allowed to speak to anyone outside their room. Any attempt to resist resulted in brutal torture. All their “earnings” was taken away by the so-called husbands or mistresses. The “husbands” would occasionally write from fake addresses to their parents to avoid arousing any suspicion. Women organized a rally to protest the inaction of police, who they suspect knew about the trafficking. (Mumtaz Khatun, Kolsur Nari Vikas Kendra, Cente of Communication and Development, Madhyamgram, The Times of India News Service, 1 October 1997)
A twenty year old Bangladeshi woman escaped prostitution in Calcutta. A year before she had been sold for Rs. 10,000 to men who forced her into prostitution and tortured her. She later escaped to become a maid, then escaped from that to seek help from police. Along with others, her husband was arrested by police. She informed police that she knew a lot of Bangladeshi girls in Calcutta who were being prostituted. (Ittefak report, 8 March 1993, Trafficking in Women and Children: The Cases of Bangladesh, pp. 29 & 30, Ittefak, 5 March 1993, UBINIG, 1995)
13-year-old Mira of Nepal was offered a job as a domestic worker in Bombay, India. She arrived at a brothel on Bombay’s Falkland Road, where tens of thousands of young women are displayed in row after row of zoo-like animal cages. Her father had been duped into giving her to a trafficker. When she refused to have sex, she was dragged into a torture chamber in a dark alley used for ‘breaking in’ new girls. She was locked in a narrow, windowless room without food or water. On the fourth day, one of the madam’s thugs goonda wrestled her to the floor and banged her head against the concrete until she passed out. When she awoke, she was naked; a rattan cane smeared with pureed red chili peppers shoved into her vagina. Later she was raped by the goonda. Afterwards, she complied with their demands. The madam told Mira that she had been sold to the brothel for 50,000 rupees (about US$1,700), that she had to work until she paid off her debt. Mira was sold to a client who then became her pimp. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
In 1982, 13 year old Tulasa was abducted from a village near Kathmandu in Nepal and sold to a brothel in Bombay. She was dressed in European-style clothes and taken to luxury hotels to serve mostly Arab clients until a hotel manager called the police. Hospitalized, Tulasa was found to be suffering from three types of venereal disease and tuberculosis. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
Policy and Law
The UN Convention of the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (1949), and the supplementary convention on the abolition of slavery, the slave trade and institutions and practices of slavery have been signed by most of the SAARC countries, including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. (Trafficking in Women and Children: The Cases of Bangladesh, p.9, UBINIG, 1995)
In 1992, Bombay, India, police intercepted the traffic of 25 Bangladeshi children, 5 to 8 years old. The children and trafficker were held in the same jail. Three years later, 12 of the children were returned to their homes. (Fawzia Karim Firoze & Salma Ali of the Bangladesh National Women Layer Association,” Bangladesh Country Paper: Law and Legislation”)
Actions of NGOs
A major trafficking network was discovered by the Karnataka State Commission for Women (KSCW), smuggling 12-18-year-old girls from various impoverished districts to contractors who run brothels in Goa. The contractors pay the parents for their girl children under false pretenses. (Seethalakshmi S., “Karnataka girls being sold to Goa breothels,” Time of India, 28 May 1998)
The exploitation of Nepalese women and girls may never end. “[F]or some there is too much easy money in it, for others there’s nothing to be gained by lobbying for its abolition. But surely, for now, it can be monitored. Its magnitude can be lessened,” says Durga Ghimire, chairperson of a 98-NGO-strong pressure group National Network Groups Against Trafficking. She feels that the alarmingly low rates of female literacy, coupled with the traditionally low status of the girl-child in Nepal have to be addressed to tackle the problem. Gauri Pradhan of Child Workers in Nepal Concerned Centre (CWIN) emphasizes the need for collaboration by the two governments on this issue. (Soma Wadhwa, “For sale childhood,” Outlook, 1998)
There are several shelters run by various Katmandu-based NGOs working against trafficking and towards rehabilitation of girls who manage to escape or are rescued from Indian brothels. This is not easy work. Relatives of the rescued girls generally don’t want them back and Nepal’s government is worried about the spread of HIV, as many of the trafficked girls have contracted HIV while enslaved in India. (Soma Wadhwa, “For sale childhood,” Outlook, 1998)
Official Response and Action
139 prostituted Nepalese girls were rescued through a police raid in Kamatipura, India and were then repatriated to Katmandu. (Soma Wadhwa, “For sale childhood,” Outlook, 1998)
Rehabilitation of trafficked women and children forced into prostitution in Indian brothels is hampered by lack of Indian government support and agenda for their rehabilitation. The sending country may not come forward to claim them and younger children may not know where they originally came from. (Soma Wadhwa, “For sale childhood,” Outlook, 1998)
Prostitution
There are approximately 10 million prostitutes in India. (Human Rights Watch, Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
There are more than 100,000 women in prostitution in Bombay, Asia’s largest sex industry center. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
At least 2,000 women are in prostitution along the Baina beachfront in Goa. (Frederick Moronha, India Abroad News Service, 9 August 1997)
There are 300,000-500,000 children in prostitution in India. (Rahul Bedi, “Bid To Protect Children As Sex Tourism Spreads,”London’s Daily Telegraph, 23 August, 1997)
Men who believe that AIDS and other STDs can be cured by having sex with a virgin, are forcing young girls into the sex industry; seven year old girls are neither uncommon nor the youngest. (Tim McGirk “Nepal’s Lost Daughters, ‘India’s soiled goods,”Nepal/India News, 27 January 1997)
Approximately 20,000 or 20% of women in prostitution in Bombay are under 18. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
Every day, about 200 girls and women in India enter prostitution, 80% of them against their will. (Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) and Planning Rural-Uraban Intergrated Development through Education (PRIDE), “Devadasi System Continues to Legitimise Prostitution: The Devadasi Tradition and Prostitution,” TOI, 4 December 1997)
Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil, Nadu and Uttar Pradesh are the high-supply zones for women in prostitution. Belgaum, Bijapur, and Kolhapur are some common districts from which women migrate to cities either through an organized trafficking network, or due to socioeconomic forces (Central Social Welfare Board, Meena Menon, “Women in India’s Trafficking Belt”, 30 March 1998)
Bangalore is one of the five major cities in India which together account for 80 percent of child prostitutes in the country. (Seethalakshmi S., “Karnataka girls being sold to Goa breothels,” Time Of India, 28 May 1998)
90% of the 100,000 women in prostitution in Bombay are indentured slaves. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
Prostitution is increasing in India where there have been fears over the spread of AIDS and reports of young girls being abducted and forced into prostitution. (“Asian prostitutes meet to demand legal status,” Reuters, 29 July 1998)
It takes up to fifteen years for girls held in prostitution via debt-bondage to purchase their freedom. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
Children of prostituted women are victims of sexual abuse as well. Children are forced to perform dances and songs for male buyers, and some are forced to sexually service the males. (Activists, Meena Menon, “Tourism and Prostitution,” 1997)
Of 1,000 red light districts all over India, cage prostitutes are mostly minors, often from Nepal and Bangladesh. (CATW – Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)
In Bombay, 95% of the children of prostituted women become prostitutes. One child, who had repeatedly been sodomized by the men who bought his mother, decided to become a eunuch. He was ritually castrated. (Sheela Remedios program director of Project Child, Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
There are three routes into prostitution for most women in India. 1) Deception; 2) Devadasi dedication and 3) Bad marriages or families. For some women their marriages were so violent they preferred prostitution. Husbands or families introduced some women to prostitution. Many families knew what the women had to do, but ignored it as long as they got the benefits from it. (Malini Karkal “Down Memory Lane,” (interview, The Maharashtra Times, 19 November 1997)
The red light district in Bombay generates at least $400 million a year in revenue, with 100,000 prostitutes servicing men 365 days a year, averaging 6 customers a day, at $2 each. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
The largest red light district in India, perhaps in the world, is the Falkland Road Kamatipura area of Bombay. (film,”The Selling of Innocents” 1997)
In Kamathipura brothel district in Bombay more than 70,000 prostituted women and girls are bought by three men a day. Condoms are seldom used. Escape is rare. (Tim McGirk “Nepal’s Lost Daughters, ‘India’s soiled goods,'” 27 January 1997)
There are many dhabhas, or small-scale brothels, along the Solapur-Hyderabad highway, which provide women as an “additional service” to truck drivers and motorists. One woman who runs a dhabha had previously been in prostitution. Now, with a shed, two cots and a few girls from nearby villages, she owns the brothel. “I rented this place for Rs 1000 a month and take Rs 20 per man from the girls. (Meena Menon “The Twilight Zone,”The Hindu, 27 July 1997)
A brothel owner along the Solapur-Hyderabad highway reported that he has two women. He takes a Rs 15 commission for each man. Since this is illegal, he pays the nearest police station Rs 1,000 a month as hafta, or bribe. If a girl is beautiful, she will be bought by five to ten men a day. The owner’s monthly earnings can reach Rs 4,000 to 5,000 a month. (Meena Menon “The Twilight Zone,” The Hindu, 27 July 1997)
A brothel owner along the Solapur-Hyderabad highway reported that prostituting women is good a business. He had ten to 12 girls. He paid the police Rs 6,000 as a monthly bribe. He goes to Bombay to bring women and girls, implying he was part of a bigger network. (Meena Menon, “The Twilight Zone,” The Hindu, 27 July 1997)
The women and girls in the dhabhas, or brothels, along the Solapur-Hyderabad highway, are threatened, harassed, forced to service men, or goondas, freely and beaten by men and police. Local farmers abuse them also. Police do not register any complaints of assault. In one cases, a woman who was running over unfamiliar fields to escape the police in pitch darkness; she stumbled into a well and was killed. Sometimes, bodies of women are found on the fields, half eaten by animals. Another woman had her ears cut off, was robbed and left unconscious on the road. (Meena Menon, “The Twilight Zone,” The Hindu, 27 July 1997)
Eunuch Lane in Bombay has more than 2,000 eunuchs in prostitution. The eunuchs, or hijras, have deep religious roots in Hinduism. As young boys they are abandoned or sold by their families to a sex ring and taken into the jungle, where a priest cuts off their genitals in a ceremony called nirvana. The priest then folds back a strip of flesh to create an artificial vagina. Eunuchs are generally more available to perform high-risk sex than female prostitutes, and some Indian men believe they can’t contact HIV from them. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
A survey of prostituted women in India reveals their reasoning for staying in prostitution (in descending order of significance): poverty/ unemployment; lack of proper reintegration services, lack of options; stigma and adverse social attitudes; family expectations and pressure; resignation and acclimation to the lifestyle. (CATW – Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)
Health and Well-being
Madams take sick women to one of the red light districts 200 unlicensed doctors, who give the women mood elevators, IV drips of colored water or medicinal herbs. The women must pay for this “treatment” with cash from moneylenders, and the Mafia collects a percentage from the “doctors.” (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
60% of prostituted women in Bombay’s red-light district areas are infected with STDs and AIDS. (CATW – Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)
More than half of Bombay’s 100,000 prostitutes are infected with HIV. A magazine publisher in Bombay said AIDS will benefit the country because it will depopulate the vast underclass. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
In July 1990, mob bosses permitted Savahdan, a charity group, to repatriate 700 South Indian prostitutes to Madras, most of whom were HIV positive. It was perceived as a cheap way of getting rid of HIV infected girls. Many women, too sick to prostitute are thrown onto the street. Government hospitals won’t treat prostitutes who are HIV positive, or are developing symptoms of AIDS. In Bombay’s J.J. Hospital an HIV infected woman was refused treatment, though she was bleeding and her condition was life threatening. She delivered a baby in the brothel. [government report, Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996]
In Bombay, on average the girls are bought by six men a day, who pay US$1.10 – 2 per sex act, the madam gets the money up front. To pay for movies, clothes, make-up and extra food to supplement a diet of rice and dal, the girls have to borrow from moneylenders at an interest rate of up to 500%. They are perpetually in debt. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
In 1991, Bombay’s 100,000 prostituted women averaged 600,000 sexual contacts a day. At the time 30% were HIV positive, the chance of transmission was 0.1%. On that basis, 200 clients were being infected with HIV everyday, 6,000 each month. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
Prostitution Tourism
Foreign tourists are frequenting India because of its relaxed laws, abundant child prostitutes and the false idea that there is a lower incidence of AIDS. (Rahul Bedi, “Bid To Protect Chedren As Sex Tourism Spreads,” 1997)
India is one of the favored destinations of paedophile sex tourists from Europe and the United States. (“Global law to punish sex tourists sought by Britain and EU,” The Indian Express, 21 November 1997
Multinational tour operators, hotel companies, airlines and travel agencies are setting up the tourism agenda for Goa, India and the world over. However, they ignore the host community. (Roland Martins, Jagrut Goenkaranchi Fauz, “While the Locals Visit the Temple to Pray, You Will Have Bikini-Clad Women Moving Around,” Herald, 4 October 1997)
Cases
December 1997, a nine-year-old girl from Pune was found living with a 54- year- old Swiss national in a Goa hotel for over nine months. A local NGO filed a complaint with the police and the girl was sent to an observation home. When contacted, her father said she was there with his consent. The man was released following an investigation. Inspector General, Goa Police, Mr. P.R.S. Brar said “paedophilia is a myth, it just does not exist.” Ms. Mohini Giri, chair of the National Commision for Women met with the girl and said she had admitted to being sexually abused. (Meena Menon, “Tourism and Prostitution,” The Hindu, 14 February, 1998)
In 1990 an orphanage owner in Goa was arrested for allegedly supplying children to British, French, German, Swiss and Scandinavian prostitution tourists. He was freed on bail and the case has still not gone to court. (Rahul Bedi, “Bid To Protect Children As Sex Tourism Spreads,”London’s Daily Telegraph, 1997)
The main frequenters of prostitutes in Goa are tourists, local men and college boys. United States “seamen” ask locals in Goa which bars to find prostitutes in. Taxi drivers take tourists from Delhi, Gurjarat, Bangalore, Bombay and Punjab to brothels in Baina. Some men have taxi drivers bring prostituted girls from Baina back to their hotels in Panjim. The next morning, the taxi drivers rape the girls before taking them home. (taxi driver, Meena Menon, “Tourism and Prostitution,”The Hindu 1997)
Policy and Law
Although prostitution is legal in India, brothel keeping, living off the earnings of a prostitute, soliciting or seducing for the purposes of prostitution are all punishable offenses. There are severe penalties for child prostitution and trafficking of women. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
Since mid-1997 the International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustment policy for India has given rise to the economic and sexual exploitation of women in export processing zones, where 70-80% of workers are young women. (Sujatha Fernandes, “Growing Women’s Movement in India,” Green Left Weekly, 20 July 1997)
The devadasi tradition, still prevalent in many parts of India, continues to legitimise child prostitution. A devadasi is a woman married to a god and thus sadasuhagan or married, and hence at all times blessed. As such, she becomes the wife of the powerful in the community. Devadasi is known by different names in different states. In the Vijapur district of Karnataka, girls are given to the Monkey God (Hanuman, Maruti), and known as Basvi. In Goa, a devadasi is called Bhavin (the one with devotion), In the Shimoga District of Karnataka, the girls are handed over to the goddess Renuka Devi, and in Hospet, to the goddess Hulganga Devi. The tradition lives on in other states in South India. Girls end up as prostitutes in Bombay and Pune. The Banchara and Bedia peoples of Madhya Pradesh also practice “traditional” prostitution. (Farida Lambey, vice-principal of the Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work, “Devadasi System Continues to Legitimise Prostitution: The Devadasi Tradition and Prostitution,” TOI, 4 December 1997)
Official Response and Action
After raiding Kamathipura, Mumbai’s largest red district, Mumbai police 160 women were sent to the St Catherines Rescue Home. Many women were HIV positive and a large number were pregnant or already had children. (Sister Shiela, Mitu Varma, “India: Children of a Lesser God,” InterPress Services, 27 October 1997)
In Goa, India there are at least 400 children in prostitution. After Ms. Mohini Giri, chair of the National Commission for women, visited and declared there to be rampant child prostitution in the area, police have conducted some raids in order to find prostituted children. Although police conduct raids, brothels recieve tip-offs and hide the minors before raids are conducted. (Meena Menon, “Tourism and Prostitution,” 1997)
Official Corruption and Collaboration
In Bombay, top politicians and police officials are in league with the mafia who control the sex industry, exchanging protection for cash payoffs and donations to campaign war chests. Corruption reaches all levels of the ruling Congress Party in New Delhi. Many politicians view prostitutes as an expendable commodity. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,”The Nation, 8 April 1996)
The mafia kidnapped a Dutch doctor compiling an ethnographic study for the World Health Organization. He was released three days later and warned to stop probing the links among politicians, the mob and prostitution. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
Underage girls are rarely found in brothels because the pimps and owners receive tip offs from police about impending raids. (Meena Menon, “Tourism and Prostitution,” The Hindu, 14 February,1998)
In one brothel in Bombay, the police receive weekly bribes called haftas from the madams. Cops harass the girls, take their money, and demand free sexual services. (Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
South Central Bombay is home to the biggest organized crime family in Asia, run by Dawood Ibrahim. In 1992, 40 candidates in Bombay’s municipal elections, and 180 of 425 legislators in Uttar Pradesh had criminal records. Shantabai, Bombay’s most powerful madam controlled as many as 10,000 pimps and prostitutes’ votes in a 1985 election. Bombay’s sex industry has evolved into a highly efficient business. It is controlled by four separate crime groups: One in charge of police payoffs, another controlling money laundering, a third maintaining internal law and order, and the fourth procures women through a vast network streching from South India to the Himalayas. Of the four mafia groups in Bombay, the most powerful is Mehboob Thasildar, the procurer of women. Thasildar opened a restaurant on the ground floor of a two-story, blocklong brothel he also owned, one of the biggest in Bombay, with more than 50 prostituted women. (Indian government sources, Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
Action of NGOs
As of mid-1998, Sanlaap shelter in Sneha, India has 25 to 30 rescued prostituted children. 60% of the children rescued from prostitution are HIV positive. (Indrani Sinha, SANLAAP India, “Paper on Globalization & Human Rights”)
NGO workers, who urge prostitutes to use condoms, have to get the Mafia’s consent, and promise to ignore the child prostitution. (Shilpa, a 30-year-old social worker who has spent five years in the red-light district, Robert I. Freidman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)
Pornography
Most of phone sex numbers called from India are phone sex businesses run in the United States, Hong Kong and Australia. (“India cuts access to phone sex numbers,” Reuters, 20 August 1998)
Official Response and Action
India has blocked access to international numbers used for phone sex. “These services are obscene…they are against the moral fibre of the country and a drain on foreign exchange,” said Communications Minister Sushma Swaraj. She said the government had directed state-run monopoly international carrier, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) to cut off the calls. The minister said many Indian government phones were being misused to make calls to sex lines. Swaraj said that she hoped there would soon be technology to stop people accessing Internet pornography. (“India cuts access to phone sex numbers,” Reuters, 20 August 1998)
Organized and Institutionalized Sexual Exploitation and Violence
50 million girls and women are missing from India’s population, the result of systematic sex discrimination, such as abortion of female fetuses, which is officially banned. (United Nations report, Sonali Verma, “Indian women still awaiting independence,” Human Rights Information Network: Indi News Network Digest, Volume2, Issue1648, 16 August 1997)
In 1990, more than 50 widows were burnt alive when their husbands’ bodies were cremated in a ritual known as “sati,” based on the belief that a Hindu woman has no existence independent of her husband. (Sonali Verma, “Indian women still awaiting independence,” Human Rights Information Network: Indi News Network Digest, Volume2, Issue1648, 16 August 1997)
Although dowry is legally banned, at least 5,000 women are victims of “dowry murders,” in which they are killed by their husband or his family because of “insufficient” dowries. At least 12 women “die” every day from bazzier kitchen fires, which are typically concealed dowry murders. The dowry system has also led to an inflating female infanticide. especially among very poor families. Few of these cases are ever even brought to trial. (UNICEF, United Press International, 23 July 1997)
A very large percentage of marriages are arranged. “The custom of arranged marriage is a legitimized institution. In a majority of cases the bride has little or no say. She and the bridegroom are virtual strangers. In many rural communities the bridegroom does not even attend his own wedding. The sex act (between the two) is nothing but a rape. The Indian woman’s acceptance of the inevitable has, sanctified this abhorrent practice, and, subsequently legitimized it.” (Sudhir Vaishnav, “Legal Indian Rape: The new bride can be an unsuspecting victim of a legal rape,” Femina, 17 September 1997)
More than 5,000 women are murdered each year as the result of dowry killings in India. (Mindelle Jacobs, “Abuse of Women is Sadly Common,” Edmonton Sun, 11 July 1998)
In 1993, in-laws killed about 16 women every day for dowry, although the government declared accepting dowry illegal in 1961. Women’s groups say the number of cases reported is a fraction of the real figure. (Sonali Verma, “Indian women still awaiting independence,” Human Rights Information Network: Indi News Network Digest, Volume2, Issue1648, 16 August 1997)
During the armed conflict in Kashmir, Punjab and other Northeastern states women are victimized, raped, tortured, sexually abused and violated by military personnel, militants or insurgents, para-military units, rebel groups, religious sects, fundamentalist armed groups, warlords, state security forces, armed opposition groups, or terrorists and peace-keeping forces. (Indrani Sinha, executive director, “Paper on Globalization and Human Rights,” SANLAAP)
In 1997, there were reports of Indian armed forces arresting, torturing and molesting women and girls in Kashmir. Every day the local newspapers report such incidences. (KASHNet, Human Rights Information Network, 14 August 1997)
Women and girls have been systematically brutalized and raped by Indian forces in house to house searches in Kashmir between October 1996 and December 1997. (“Rape and Molestation: A Weapon of War in Kashmir,” The Institute of Kashmir Studies,” 1998)
Official Response and Action
To halt child marriages, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in India has recommended compulsory registration of marriages to be added as an amendment to the Child Marriage (Restraint) Act. (“NHRC for amendments to Child Marriage Act,” Hindu Daily, 17 August 1998)
A considerable number of child marriages, performed on April 29, 1998 (Akshay Thithiya day), were witnessed and took place without any obstruction from the authorities or members of the public in Bikaner and Jodhpur, India. (Senior Superintendent of Police, National Human Rights Commission’s (NHRC) Investigation Division, “NHRC for amendments to Child Marriage Act,” Hindu Daily, 17 August 1998)
The National Girl Child Week began in India on 23 September 1998 as part of a regional celebration of the rights of the girl child in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka to reaffirm commitment to the SAARC Decade of the Girl Child. The UNICEF India Country Office has identified high maternal mortality, low birth weight babies and discriminatory post-natal attention to boys in India as some of the major reasons for disparity in male-female child ratio. The week will highlight governmental, inter-governmental, and non-governmental efforts to end this disparity. (“Steps to strengthen rights of the girl child,” Hindu Daily, 23 September 1998)
Cases
In September 1987, 18-year-old Roop Kanwar was forced to commit suttee. Cans of ghee cooking butter were poured on her as she burnt to death on her husband’s funeral pyre. Conch shells were blown like horns after she died. And a trishul was left as a symbol of the faith of the sati, or “true wife” in Sanskrit. In October 1996, all 38 defendants in the Kanwar cases were acquitted. Following this, more than 1,000 devotees staged a major festival at the Rani Sati temple in Jhunjhunu, in contravention of the 1988 Act, which prohibits glorification of suttee. The court refused to stop the nine-day event in late November and early December, but ruled there must be no direct reference to suttee, and that the rituals must be held outside rather than within the temple. Protesters violated this order, and filed a contempt petition. (Muku; Sharma, “Women Fight New Threats of Widow Sacrifice,” 7 February 1997)
Indian armed forces stormed into the house of Kamal Dar, in Padshahi Bagh area and locked his daughter Madeeha in a separate room where she was subjected to severe torture for many hours. Kamal Dar said the person gave electric shocks to his 18-year-old daughter and molested her. The armed personnel also treated in a similar way another woman, wife of one Bashir Amad and mother of five children. They also molested two girls in Pahalgam. A group of security forces men in the village of Dehar Muna raided the house of Ghulam Muhammad and abducted her daughter, Raja Bano, at gunpoint. The girl was taken to a security camp. After her release she explains that she was interrogated for whole night and kept naked throughout the night. She also showed torture marks on her body. She was taken to hospital for medical examination. (police sources, KASHNet, Human Rights Information Network, 14 August 1997)
Maimun, 19 was gang-raped and attempts made to murder her following her love marriage to Idris, 28. A team from the National Commission for Women to investigate the torture of the young woman was attacked by nearly 1,000 villagers. Maumun’s cousin had cut Maimun’s abdomen and neck with a butcher knife, leaving her to bleed to death. (Piyush Mathur, “NCW members probing rape of girl attacked,”Times of India, 16 August 1997)
Factbook Table of Contents CATW Homepage
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Donna M. Hughes, Laura Joy Sporcic, Nadine Z. Mendelsohn and Vanessa Chirgwin
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in India on July 13th, 2012
NEW DELHI: In yet another security breach in the military, an Army officer has been caught for establishing contact on social networking site Facebook with a Bangladeshi woman working for Pakistan’s ISI. The woman, in fact, had earlier “honey-trapped” another Indian officer in an ISI espionage operation in Bangladesh late last year.
The Army is conducting a court of inquiry (CoI) against the officer, a lieutenant colonel from the 82 Armoured Regiment deployed in a forward formation in Suratgarh district of Rajasthan, to ascertain whether he divulged or compromised classified operational information along the western front with Pakistan.
The Army strongly denied reports that the lieutenant colonel had also got entangled in a honey trap — basically an intelligence operation for first seducing and then blackmailing a person into divulging confidential information – or that two laptops with sensitive information had gone missing.
“The officer was just chatting online with the woman on the computer … there was no physical contact. No laptops have been lost. We are conducting a CoI into the incident,” a senior officer said.
Intelligence Bureau got wind of the matter as they were already tracking the Bangladeshi woman, identified as Sheeba, after she had honey trapped another Indian lieutenant colonel, this time a Para Regiment commando, who was undergoing a staff college course in the Bangladesh military academy in Dhaka last year.
“The Para officer was compromised in the ISI honey trap at Dhaka. But instead of giving away any information, he alerted Indian authorities and was promptly flown out of Bangladesh,” an official said.
Other military officers have also been caught in honey traps in recent years. The Navy, for instance, last year sacked Commodore Sukhjinder Singh after his sexually explicit pictures with a Russian woman had surfaced. Singh was posted in Moscow as part of the Indian negotiating team for the acquisition of aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov (now rechristened INS Vikramaditya), for which India finally agreed to pay $2.33 billion after protracted and bitter negotiations with Russia.
Several military officers are also in the dock for compromising classified information and data through the improper use of internet or social networking websites like Facebook, Orkut and Twitter despite strict guidelines against such conduct.
Five to six officers, for instance, are facing a naval board of inquiry (BoI) after Chinese hackers were recently detected to have broken into sensitive naval computers, in and around Eastern Navy Command HQs at Visakhapatnam, with the help of “worm-infected” pen-drives.
Another BoI in the Mumbai-based Western Navy Command has recommended stringent action, including dismissal from service, against at least two commanders for posting confidential information and data, including location of warships and their patrolling patterns, on Facebook.
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