TCN News
Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) of Rajasthan has strongly condemned the arrest of a young survivor of gang-rape and two Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan (JJSS) activists in Araria District of Bihar.
In a statement, MKSS has detailed that the three were arrested by a district court and put into judicial custody on July 11, while the rapists remain unapprehended. It said that “the survivor was agitated and upset while signing her statement in court, and wanted the presence and guidance of Kalyani and Tanmay (JJSS), who had been supporting her throughout the ordeal of registering the complaint.” However, all three of them were accused for creating a “disruption” during court trial leading the magistrate to order their arrest on charges of criminal conspiracy, obstruction of duty and insulting the judicial officer (Sections 353,188, 228, 120-B of IPC and Contempt of Courts Act).
MKSS has blamed the judiciary for this “problematic and insensitive way” to treat the rape survivor while further discussing that a special hearing at Araria, the CJM court level granted bail to the gangrape survivor on July 17, but not to Kalyani and Tanmay, who are still unjustly detained in Dalsinghsarai Jail in Samastipur district. Sounding alarm to this appalling decision, MKSS has called out this as “an arbitrary turn of events leaving the survivor without her primary support people,” hence leaving her “open to further emotional and mental distress” in the presence of a lingering potential stigma and social pressure from her community.
“The government-imposed COVID-19 lockdown has emboldened the state apparatuses to function with arbitrariness, impunity and a lack of accountability,” said MKSS on Monday speaking of recent arrests of young activists. It reiterated that keeping Kalyani and Tanmay in jail – two young and sensitive activists, also sends a chilling message that supporting survivors in their struggle for justice can even draw the wrath of the institutions of law. It has also resonated that this case “compromises the integrity of democracy and undermines the work of Indian feminist movements which struggled to make various structures of power more sensitive, empathetic, responsible and non-hostile to violence against historically marginalized groups, including women, trans persons and non-conforming gender identities.”
Indicating the mishandling of the gang-rape case in Araria as yet another wake-up call for all of us, MKSS has appealed social justice and political institutions to come together in solidarity “to protect the democratic and constitutional values that define India, and hold institutional structures accountable and answerable for their excesses.”
MKSS expressed their support for JJSS, acknowledging its role as an autonomous people’s trade union working on issues of livelihoods and social justice, appealing to “the higher judiciary in the state to intervene immediately in this case with empathy and fairness, but also issue state-specific guidelines to ensure that there is a friendly and non-hostile environment in respect of rape and sexual assault cases, in adherence with the recommendations of the Justice Verma Commission.”