TCN News
Over 10 leading Indian American civil rights groups dedicated to safeguarding India’s democratic and secular values, held a protest at Dallas Municipal Court against the alleged state coverup of the rape and murder of the 19-year-old Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras.
“It would be naive and preposterous to assume that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, whose government has gone to such length to deny the crime and protect the perpetrators, would ensure justice,” said Dilip Gupta, one of the Indian American protestors. The organizing groups Hindus for Human Rights, Ambedkarite Buddhist Association of Texas (ABAT), DFW Guru Ravidas Organization, Global Indian Progressive Alliance and Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), among other organizations held placards that said “Dalit Lives Matter” and “Stop Rape.” One of the protestors explained that these messages resonate the issue of caste based politics and atrocities against the marginalized in India where the state shields criminals from the upper caste.
Holding and chanting slogans, dozens of protesters near the Dallas Court condemned the UP police for denying that the woman had been raped and for failing to investigate the crime in time because she belonged to the lowest rung of the Hindu society or the “untouchables.” Highlighting that three more rape incidents had occurred across the state and one in Hathras itself within six days of the brutal crime despite heavy presence of media and the police, the protestors iterated that “law and order had broken down under Adityanath’s rule.”
“Rapes happen in India because of caste supremacy,” said Jagdish Banker from ABAT. The protestors spoke strongly against UP police action of refusing to hand over the victim’s body to her family and cremating it on their own without her family’s consent. Calling it as “the most brazen attempt at coverup,” the organizers criticized the UP government of having involved in a shameful attempt of suggesting that the victim’s family had killed her in an act of ‘honor killing.’
“I could not sleep since I heard about this rape,” said Abdul Quadir, another Indian American, who drove four hours to join the protest. Himself being a father of a young girl, he expressed shock and grief at the “sheer cruelty” that the police did by not respecting the mother’s right to prepare for daughter’s dead body for her last journey which is customary among Hindus. The protestors further reiterated the need for swift justice and the urgency of “wider awareness of caste-based atrocities, not just in India but also in the US.”
“Torture, oppression and terror have no religion,” said Gurvinder Singh, an Indian American Sikh who stressed on the importance of standing for others to ensure they are not on the wrong side of history.