From: mghayalo@uceng.uc.edu (Manoj Ghayalod)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Surat Atrocities article
Date: 23 Jan 93 18:33:42 GMT
Organization: University of Cincinnati

In article <1993Jan22.214329.15339@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> pandya@levers.dec.com (Atul Pandya) writes:
>
>Someone asked for a copy to be posted here. 
>
>Thanks to those who provided me a copy.
>
>Atul Pandya	pandya@ranger.enet.dec.com
>		--or-- ...!decwrl!ranger.enet.dec.com!pandya
>		--or-- pandya%ranger.dec@decwrl.dec.com
>======================================================
>	GRUESOME TALES BY SURAT WOMEN
>
>    From the Times of India, Dec.22, 1992.
>	Reproduced without permission
>
>_________________________________________________
>
>The Times of India News Service
>
>SURAT, December 21
>
>	A 19-year old girl who was gang-raped and     
>tonsured is convalescing in the Surat civil hospital.
>	She is one of the victims who was pulled out
>from the ill-fated Bhusaval-bound train on December 10.
>Her brother who was accompanying her to Dhulia was
>stabbed and burnt alive in front of her.
>	A 20-year old married recently to a religious
>leader and came from Assam to Surat was also gang-raped.
>Her husband was slaughtered in front of her. She is now
>struggling for life at the Sarvajanik Hospital here,
>following an acid attack. 
>	Another victim, in her early twenties and the
>sister of a Surat police officer, also met with a 
>similar fate on the night of December 7 on Varachha Road.
>	Tragedy has struck Surat women with a vengeance.
>And for them, it was hell let loose. These are some of the
>gruesome cases that have come to light. How many women have
>been gang-raped is now known but tales which some of the 
>women relate at different relief camps are shocking.
>	Vijaynagar-II, Vishramnagar, Tunkinagar, J.P.Nagar,
>Sandasnagar, adjoining areas of Dawal Shah Peer Dargah on
>Ved Road are the societies where the women were subjected to
>such barbaric acts. The night of December 8 would go down
>as the darkest night the residents ever saw in their lives.
>	With no police at all to stop the frenzied mobs, a
>grisly drama of murder, loot, rape and sadism at its worst
>were enacted. While men were thrown into bonfires, torched
>alive or had burning tyres put around their necks, women
>were stripped of all their clothes and ordered to "run till
>they can run". 
>	As the naked women ran for their lives with shivering
>and shuddering children clinging to them, the ancient system
>of tripping horses was applied. Sticks and ropes were used as
>hurdles, so that several of them tripped and fell down
>becoming easy prey for those hoodlums.
>	A visit to the Marjaan Shaani Hall where about 1,529
>terror-stricken people are taking shelter is a tragic sight.
>Many of the survivors have gory tales to tell. But what is most
>shocking; is that the killers VIDEO RECORDED the incidents. 
>Why did they bring the video camera along with them and what
>was their intention in recording their inhuman acts on tape
>defies explanation because if the tape falls in the hands of
>the police, it may become a vital piece of evidence against
>the same killers.
>	Many in the camp have now mustered the courage to
>identify by name some of the hoodlums who led the mobs.
>	Yet another unfortunate women who is also taking
>shelter in the same camp has become a widow at 22 after her
>husband was butchered. A fifth victim recalls that she had
>just prepared food for the family when her husband called 
>from the stairs that he would just go down and ask the
>children to come upstairs, as the situation was very tense.
>He went down never to return. Later as the family fled the
>home following another attack, his father was hacked to
>death, and his three-year-old grandson suffered sword
>injuries on the head.
>	Perhaps the plight of Jamilabanu, who is several
>months pregnant is the most tragic of all. Having seen her
>husband and three children being slaughtered in front of
>her own eyes and their bodies being hurled into a bonfire,
>she had lost her mental balance. She was amongst the
>several women who were brought to the camp totally naked, 
>thanks to the help from a local leader. Lying in one of
>the corners of the camp office, she has not opened her
>eyes since the last five days.
>	The same story is narrated in the other camps. Not
>a tear has so far been shed by a young boy who saw his
>mother and young sister being gang-raped and later torched
>to death. He is among the 600 persons taking shelter at
>the Surat Lala camp house in the Saiyad Pura area of the
>city.
>	"I just pretended I was dead," another riot victim
>narrated. She along with her brother and sister-in-law were
>proceeding towards their native Dhulia on Thursday last by
>the ill-fated Surat-Bhusaval train when the killers struck.
>She was gang-raped, beaten hollow by sticks, set on fire
>and thrown on the rail track.
>	A couple of policemen who spotted her on the track
>covered her body and rushed her to the Surat civil hospital.
>Her sister-in-law who was carrying a 10-month old son with
>her was spared by the mob.
>	Mny of the young girls in the affected areas are
>still missing. whether they are alive or not and in what
>condition, no one knows.
>	For the time being, the ball is in the court of the
>police, at least to seize the video cassette which has the
>gruesome incidents on the tape. The scars that these women
>have suffered will take years to heal and many of them are
>not sure as to where to return when the situation becomes
>"normal".
>
>___________________________________________________________
>
>
>Standard disclaimers apply 
>such barbaric acts. 

When are we going to start giving the death sentence to such
people in India?

Manoj
>
>
>
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