Police fire water cannon at rape protesters
Print Edition
INDIAN police fired water cannon yesterday at a group of mainly women protesting against the gang-rape and lynching of two girls in the country’s largest state.
Several hundred protesters demanding an end to violence against women had gathered outside the office of the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, and riot police tried to disperse the crowd by hosing them, footage broadcast on Indian television showed.
The protests came amid growing uproar over last week’s killings, with the United Nations saying violence against women should be regarded as a matter of basic human rights.
“There should be justice for the families of the two teenage girls and for all the women and girls from lower caste communities who are targeted and raped in rural India,” said Lise Grande, the UN’s resident coordinator for India. “Violence against women is not a women’s issue, it’s a human rights issue.”
India brought in tougher rape laws last year after the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi but they have failed to stem the tide of sex attacks across the country.
There was widespread outrage when the initial protests over the Delhi gang-rape were broken up with the use of water cannon, but police resorted to similar methods yesterday in state capital Lucknow.
“We’re not going to sleep, we’ll be here, they have to stop this (violence against women),” one protester told the NDTV network during the demonstration before the crowd was drenched by police.
The two cousins, aged 14 and 12, had gone into fields to relieve themselves because their homes do not have toilets.
Police have arrested five people in connection with the attacks and a federal police investigation has been ordered.
But there are claims that the authorities in Uttar Pradesh, which is run by the Samajwadi Party, are “not serious” about tackling sexual crimes.
Asked last week about the incidence of rapes in the state, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav told a female reporter: “You haven’t been harmed, have you? No, right? Great. Thank you.”
And the head of the ruling party, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who is the chief minister’s father, sparked uproar when he said rapists should not receive the death penalty because “boys will be boys.”
The two Yadavs have been widely criticized for so far failing to visit the village of Katra Shahadatganj where the attacks took place.
Speaking during a visit to the village yesterday, a minister in India’s new federal government hit out at the state administration.
“If you are not being able to provide the right to life, then what kind of government is this?” said Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan.
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