Trigger warning: the following article has disturbing details of sexual assault.
In the early evening of September 19, videos on social media platform X went viral. A 32-year-old woman in a wheelchair, wearing a cervical collar, her face traumatised, with mics of TV channels thrust at her, spoke of horrors she had allegedly faced at the Bharatpur police station in Bhubaneswar, Odisha’s capital. As she was wheeled out of AIIMS Bhubaneswar following an Orissa High Court order for a medical examination, she recounted a night of sexual harassment and physical torture at the hands of women and men police personnel.
“I was pinned down by two women officers and dragged along a corridor,” she said, adding that a woman officer began choking her. She was slapped so hard that one of her teeth fell out. Her hands and legs were tied in a room, which was then locked. “A male Sub-Inspector I had spoken to earlier entered the room along with a woman. She forcibly removed my bra, exposing me. The male officer then began hitting my breasts repeatedly. I was in severe pain, crying out for help and screaming for over 20 minutes, but no one came,” she said, breaking down often as she spoke to mediapersons. A male officer allegedly exposed himself to her, she alleged.
She told the reporters that she and her fiancé came to the police station at 2 a.m. on September 15, pleading to go after men who had allegedly harassed them on the road. Two women police officers present were indifferent, she said, and her frustration grew. There was a heated exchange of words for several hours between the woman and the police personnel, after which she was allegedly assaulted. Her fiancé, an Army officer with legal protection from police arrest, was also thrown in jail, but later released. The woman’s account quickly turned the incident into a national issue, discussed in drawing rooms, TV studios, the corridors of power, and the courtroom.
An FIR was lodged against the couple, citing criminal intimidation and assault on public servants. The woman was produced in court later that evening. She was hospitalised and granted bail on September 18.
All police personnel, across ranks, have now been asked not to speak to the media.
An outpouring of reaction
In the days following the incident, the discourse took on a life of its own: videos were put out talking about the strength of ‘Army daughters’, petitions for justice were circulated across the country, and there was outrage on social media.
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said on X that this raised a question mark on law and order in the country. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra pointed out that wherever the BJP was in power, it was working on a policy to turn the police from “protectors to predators”. Former Army Chief General V.K. Singh demanded immediate action against the police personnel.
The woman’s father, a retired Brigadier, said his daughter is the product of being brought up in cantonments across the country and a strong education. The children of officers of the forces, he believed, are taught to have a strong voice. “From early on, they learn what it means to be survivors,” he said.
“She went to school in Loreto Convent, Delhi, and the Navy school in Mumbai. Then she got a degree in law from the Army Institute of Law, Mohali,” he said, adding that she began practising in Delhi but her passion for cooking made her participate in various TV cooking competitions.
“When she decided to start her Korean restaurant in Patia [an upscale neighbourhood in Bhubaneswar], she crowdfunded the venture,” he said, reiterating that she could have asked him for money, but didn’t.
Recounting what his daughter allegedly went through that night, he said a few hours before entering the police station, the couple had been to a pub in Patia on a planned date. “It was past midnight when they began their drive home. They were followed by 10 to 12 men in three cars.”
The father said near Pathargadia, a relatively isolated area, at a junction of three police stations, the men in the three cars allegedly stopped the couple. A heated argument ensued, and there was some physical jostling around the car. After some tense moments, the couple allegedly managed to get back into their vehicle and fled the scene, he said. Videos relating to this were released to the media. “Unofficially”, police told the media that the couple and the men who chased them were all under the influence of alcohol and that it had been a case of road rage.
As per the woman’s allegations, the couple’s request to immediately send a patrolling vehicle to the spot was ignored. “Instead of receiving the complaint, they suggested my daughter get a medical examination done. She responded that the police’s duty was to simply lodge a complaint, and no medical examination was necessary,” said the woman’s father.
After a couple of hours, the woman began recording a video to document how a simple request to file a complaint was being ignored. In response, one of the police officers allegedly began counter-recording.
When her fiancé was allegedly briefly put behind bars, “my daughter demanded to know why he had been jailed”, said her father. “He is an Army officer and the police had no right to take him into custody without a warrant,” he said, adding that they had verified his ID.
Former Army officers protested against the incident, about 60 of them gathering and speaking to the media.
The Bharatpur police station in Bhubaneswar, which was inaugurated in March this year. | Photo Credit: Biswaranjan Rout
Police personnel protest
The Bharatpur police station, inaugurated in March this year, is a model police station. The concept of model police stations was implemented in 2018 to “inspire confidence among (the) public”, with the assurance that they would “go a long way in making (the) police people-friendly”.
However, the officer put in charge of this station, Dinakrushna Mishra, was accused of extracting money from a person who had won a bid to operate a parking lot, when he was in charge of the Cantonment police station in Cuttack.
Meanwhile, Odisha Police officers, both retired and serving, said people were prejudiced against the force. “No one is disputing the possibility of lapses, but while the woman’s statement was taken at face value, no one has made an effort to hear the side of the suspended police personnel,” said Sarat Chandra Sahoo, a retired Deputy Superintendent of Police based in Bhubaneswar. He and his colleagues feel both sides should have a fair hearing.
In front of the Commissionerate of Police, the families of those suspended and about 50 in service are protesting. Tarulata Rath, mother of a suspended Assistant Sub-Inspector, cried out that her daughter had worked more than 15 years in the department with an unblemished record. “She was bitten trying to control the woman, who got very aggressive. Yet, she has been suspended. She has gone into hiding fearing a public backlash,” she said, adding that her daughter will get only her basic salary now. She worries about how the family will manage as her daughter supported the education of her two younger siblings.
Charulata Mishra, mother of a Sub-Inspector, said it wasn’t easy for a woman with little means to work in a demanding profession like the police force. “Yet, my daughter, a mother herself, stood vigilant through the night,” she said.
Sanjeeb Panda, Commissioner of Bhubaneswar–Cuttack Police Commissionerate. | Photo Credit: Biswaranjan Rout
The state machinery is oiled
On September 18, Lieutenant General P.S. Shekhawat, General Officer Commanding, Madhya Bharat Area, was flown to Bhubaneswar. He met C.S. Singh, Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court, and other officials, including Y.B. Khurania, Director General of Police, Odisha.
Following the Army’s intervention, the Odisha government placed five police personnel under suspension and ordered a Crime Branch inquiry. The Army also requested the High Court to take suo motu cognisance of the matter. In its representation to the Orissa High Court, it said the prestige of a serving Army officer and dignity of his fiancée, the daughter of a retired Brigadier, were grossly outraged by police authorities.
While the AIIMS medical report has been submitted to the High Court, a local court in Bhubaneswar allowed the Crime Branch to conduct a narco analysis, a polygraph test, and brain fingerprinting (lie detection) of Dinakrushna at the State Forensic Science Laboratory in Gujarat.
As the pressure mounted, the Mohan Majhi government ordered a judicial probe under Justice Chitta Ranjan Dash, a retired judge of the Orissa High Court, into the alleged custodial abuse. This is the first challenge of the 100-day-old BJP government in the State.
The court expressed displeasure at the non-functioning of CCTV cameras at the Bharatpur police station as mandated by a Supreme Court order. The court, however, appreciated the steps taken by the State government to have the matter investigated.
As an MLA from Keonjhar, his home district, the Chief Minister was reprimanded by an inspector-in-charge at a police station earlier this year. Then, in a video that went viral, he had reminded the police of their duties and responsibilities, like the woman had.
After assuming office, one of Majhi’s first directives was for police officers to treat citizens with empathy. A few days after he took charge, he had called for a conference of senior police officers to discuss ways to improve policing and address public concerns.
According to a 2018 Odisha government notification, no technicalities should hinder the prompt acceptance of complaints from women. It mandates that an FIR must be promptly registered for any crime against women.
Women rights activist and former State Women’s Commission member Namrata Chadha said, “I have encountered countless instances where women are made to wait for hours at police stations while trying to file a complaint. Unless a senior police officer or a top politician intervenes with a phone call, the process is often unnecessarily delayed.”
In India, the police uniform has been seen as a symbol of power, often unchecked, ever since the time of colonisation, over a century ago. That culture has persisted, with the powerful often using the force to their benefit.
Chadha stresses the need for police personnel to undergo training for behavioural change. A retired police officer, who served for 34 years, said he got just one opportunity for mid-career training. The acute shortage of human resources, he added, makes it difficult to release personnel for training sessions.
Published - September 27, 2024 01:35 am IST
