It’s almost a year since a pregnant Adivasi woman was allegedly raped by security forces in Bastar, Chhattisgarh, and over nine months since the National Commission for Women and the National Human Rights Commission began sending notices to the Chhattisgarh police, asking for an Action Taken Report in the case. Adivasis from the region had also accused the police of extortion and illegal detention, as reported by Newslaundry in January 2019.

The police finally responded in August. 

Newslaundry accessed three reports filed by the police with the NHRC. These emphasise several claims made by the police, including that the victim told the police she wasn’t raped, that her husband is a Naxalite who made her invent the story to malign the police’s image. 

These claims are at variance with multiple first-person accounts that Newslaundry had gathered from the victim, her family, witnesses and other villagers.

***

The alleged rape took place on September 13, 2018, when security forces barged into the home of a 23-year-old woman in Korseguda village in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district. Speaking to Newslaundry in January this year, the woman said: “They started groping my breasts and putting their hands on my private parts. While some of them were molesting me, others were taking videos of the act on their phones. I could hear their voices. Then they forced me down on the floor and three of them raped me.” 

“Security forces” is a blanket term used by Chhattisgarh’s Adivasis to mean personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force and the state police as well as Special Police Officers who conduct patrols and operations together. They do not wear nameplates or tags on their uniforms, making it difficult to tell one from the other. SPOs, though, can generally be identified as most of them are local Adivasis.

After she was raped, the victim alleged, she was then taken to a CRPF camp and then to Basaguda police station. She was let go in the evening when some of her fellow villagers went to the police station requesting her release. She was five months pregnant at the time. 

In January 2019, the villagers submitted a complaint about her alleged gangrape and other police excesses to the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group, or JagLAG, a group of lawyers that provides free legal aid to Adivasis in the Naxal-dominated areas of Chhattisgarh. JagLAG filed a complaint with the district collector and the Superintendent of Police of Bijapur. 

On January 24, 2019, a complaint, along with Newslaundry’s report, was submitted to the NCW by Shikha Pandey, a human rights fellow with JagLAG. The NCW sent a notice to the police on January 30 asking for the Action Taken Report. Reminder notices were sent in April and May.  

Similarly, the NHRC sent a notice asking for the Action Taken Report on February 28, 2019.

In August, the police submitted three reports to the NHRC. The reports were dated February 2, June 23 and July 11. The first two were submitted by Divyang Patel — the first in his capacity as Additional Superintendent of Police, Bijapur, and the second as Superintendent of Police, Bijapur. The third report was submitted by P Sundar Raj, Deputy Inspector General of the police’s Anti-Naxal Operations Wing. 

Here are some of the claims made by the police in these reports.

The reports submitted by Patel describe the victim’s husband as a “militia commander” who “works for Naxalites”. According to the reports, he had asked his wife to “cook up a story” in order to “malign the image of the police and demoralise them”.

When Newslaundry met the 28-year-old husband in January, he was standing quietly outside his home, his face grim and helpless. He and other men in the village, including the woman’s father, said they had run away when they saw the security forces approaching in September 2018. This is a normal course of action in these parts: men avoid the security forces since, they claim, they’re often arrested and branded “Naxalites”.

The victim told this reporter that after the villagers met with representatives from JagLAG, an SPO named Mangu met with her. Mangu told her the police would “kill her” if she continued “troubling them”, and paid her ₹1,700. She showed Newslaundry the wad of notes, calling it “blood money” that she would never spend. However, in the report dated February 2, the police claim they “have not given ₹1,700 to any witness”. 

All three police reports state: “The 23-year-old victim told…she was not raped by security personnel…The victim told them that she didn’t remember the exact day or date but some 3-4 months back when she was pregnant, her husband ran towards the forest after seeing the police. The police questioned her and went away. The police has not raped her or ill-treated her. She has made the comment as she was pressured by others.”

The reports add that the villagers “have denied any incident of rape and abduction by police”.

The woman told Newslaundry about her alleged rape in detail. Her story was corroborated by at least two dozen fellow villagers on whose behalf JagLAG submitted the complaint. 

In Korseguda, Newslaundry also heard several first- and third-person accounts of the police “abducting” villagers — picking them up on the pretext of questioning and holding them until money is paid. They included Punem Kamla, 15, and her friend Punem Ramwati, 16, who alleged that they were held at Basaguda police station for two days last December till their parents paid ₹15,000 each for their release. A third girl, Punem Sandhya, was still in the Jagdalpur jail as of January 2019 because her parents couldn’t afford to pay ₹60,000, the amount the police allegedly set for her release. 

In a similar case, six villagers were allegedly held for two days in the police station last December until the villagers paid ₹80,000 for their release. The sarpanch of Korseguda, Semla Bhima, described the cases in detail to Newslaundry. His version of the events was corroborated by other villagers and activists. 

In August 2018, three villagers, Punem Gandhi, Kakem Lakhmu and Dodi Chaitu, alleged that they were stripped and beaten up by the police. Gandhi paid ₹10,000 and was released while the other two were jailed — a story Newslaundry heard from several villagers and that was mentioned in the January 2019 complaint submitted to the collector. The three police reports, however, quote statements from villagers that “none of the three were stripped and beaten up and no demand of money was made to them”.

The police reports refer to two incidents involving two villagers: Punem Irma, 20, and Tati Shankar, 12. The complaint submitted by the villagers to the collector and the Superintendent of Police, Bijapur, earlier this year states that in November 2018, Irma was taken to Basaguda police station and held until he paid ₹6,000. The same month, the complaint says, Shankar was taken to the police station, beaten up and held for two days until his family paid up ₹8,000. Newslaundry has a copy of this complaint.

But the police reports submitted to NHRC contain statements purportedly given by Irma and Shankar as well as their fathers that they “were never detained or beaten up by police and have also not paid any money to police ever”.

In all three reports, the police reproduce statements from people who were the victims, who had reported the rape, abductions and extortions to the police in January 2019. The police now claim the same people have “denied any kind of atrocity committed by the police against them” and that the villagers of Korseguda “have given statements that they were never harassed, beaten up, detained or extorted by the police”.

Newslaundry contacted Divyang Patel, the police chief of Bijapur, who submitted one of the reports. “We have taken the statement of the woman and villagers,” he said. “The woman made these allegations of rape on the insistence of some Naxalites.”

Asked how the police concluded that her husband is a Naxal, Patel said, “I have to check the report for that. I have read it a little.”

Newslaundry also contacted Surendra Yadav, SHO of Badaguda police station. His statement features in the reports, stating that the victim’s husband is a Naxal. Yadav did not even know the husband’s name. “I don’t know what his name is,” he said. “But I have said everything in my statement. Intellectuals make allegations of atrocities against the police but nothing has been proved yet. It’s a normal thing over here to make allegations against the police on the behest of Naxalites. Such investigations are normal here.”