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Her Rape Didn't Wait: But Rajasthan police reportedly delay filing of Dalit victim’s gangrape complaint for polls. True, Ashok Gehlot?

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Vandana
VandanaMay 13, 2019 | 18:07

Her Rape Didn't Wait: But Rajasthan police reportedly delay filing of Dalit victim’s gangrape complaint for polls. True, Ashok Gehlot?

The victim was a Dalit. The party in power in Rajasthan is Congress. Only Rajasthan chief minister can answer this. Our other netas are too busy mudslinging in any case.

India is in election mode and everything else is on hold — even a woman’s right to seek action against men who allegedly gangrape her in front of her husband, then record a video of the gangrape, to use the footage to blackmail the couple.

The police in Rajasthan’s Alwar reportedly did not register the complaint of the woman in question till May 7 — because the state was to go to the polls on May 6.

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Shockingly, the rape happened on April 26.

Rajasthan voted in the Lok Sabha polls in two phases — on April 29 and May 6.

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A Dalit woman raped on April 26 in Rajasthan's Alwar could not get an FIR registered — till May 7. (Source: Reuters)

All this while, the couple found no redressal of their grievance because political parties were busy promising people that they must be voted to power in the name of ‘Nyay’. Clearly and brutally, a woman’s security is not an issue that parties get voted in or out of power on.

The husband of the woman, a Dalit, has alleged she was gangraped on April 26 and the police were informed on April 30, but the FIR was filed on May 7. He alleged the police did not act quickly because of the election.

On April 26, the woman was riding pillion on a motorcycle with her husband when the accused, who were on two bikes, waylaid them in Alwar and took them to a field. They allegedly thrashed the husband and raped the woman in front of him. The act was videotaped.

The police, now asked to explain this reportedly gross miscarriage of justice, said they have arrested all six accused. But the point is — under what law can women be told to not report cases of sexual assaults because it could apparently harm the electoral prospects of contesting parties?

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The victim was a Dalit. The party in power in Rajasthan is Congress. It is for the Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot to answer how such a thing could happen because it is he who is responsible for law and order in the state.

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Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot must answer how this shocking lapse could happen right under his nose. (Source: India Today)

Meanwhile, the filing of the FIR has brought the issue to centrestage of the current political discourse, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi raking it up during one of his elections rallies. Modi asked Mayawati how she, being a Dalit leader, could continue to support a government that tried to hush up a case related to a Dalit woman.

Mayawati, on her part, took the political discourse lower by saying, “In BJP, married women leaders get scared when they see their husbands around PM Modi. They fear that this Modi will separate them from their husbands.”

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BSP chief Mayawati accused the prime minister of playing dirty politics over the case that has brought the Rajasthan government squarely into the dock. Mayawati apparently claimed that PM Modi does not respect women as he has left his own wife.

It is this political mudslinging, callous, self-seeking and unthinking, that shows no party and no leader in truth cares for the safety of women.

There is no state in India that claims to be a safe haven for women. But for a party to actually try to delay the filing of an FIR against men who allegedly gangrape a women and blackmail her with video footage of her ordeal is perhaps the lowest that can be done for elections.     

The onus is on the Rajasthan government and CM Gehlot to now tell the women of this country how this could happen.

What provision of the model code of conduct denies rape victims the right to file complaints? And under whose orders can the police refuse to file such complaints?

Those are the issues our leaders should have raised over the horrific Alwar case. Instead, they sank the point somewhere deep in their mud-slinging.

Last updated: May 13, 2019 | 18:07
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