Guwahati: The gang rape of a 14-year-old girl in central Assam’s Muslim majority Nagaon district on Thursday (August 22) evening has propelled chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to unleash a new communal tirade against the state’s Muslims.
The gang-rape victim is a Hindu. Taffiqul Islam aka Tafazzul, one of the accused, is a Muslim.
Sarma has urged the Assamese Hindu community to realise who the community’s “real enemy” is and underlined that not knowing about it is the “biggest irony” and “problem” for Hindu Assamese.
The victim in Nagaon’s Dhing was returning home from a tuition class when three men on a two-wheeler allegedly attacked and raped her.
Adding to the murkiness of the crime is the fact that Tafazzul – supposedly a prime accused and a man already in police custody – “drowned in a pond” in the early hours of Saturday morning despite being accompanied by a posse of policemen. At the time of publishing this report, two other alleged accused were still absconding.
According to the police’s version, Tafazzul supposedly tried to flee from police custody as he was being brought to the scene of the crime at 3 am. This, despite the fact that he was handcuffed and tied by rope.
On Sunday, the Peoples Union for Democratic Rights issued a statement calling Tafazzul’s drowning a custodial death:
“Given the understandable public outrage over the gangrape, the mounting impunity of men in uniform and the communalising of the incident, the possibility of an encounter happening (without mentioning Islam’s name) had been flagged by local journalists over social media soon after the police arrested Islam on August 23, 2024. Tafazul Islam’s tragic death seems to be a case of a ‘death foretold’.”
The gang rape incident brought life to a standstill in Nagaon and neighbouring districts as people came out on the streets on Friday to protest the incident and demand stringent action against the alleged perpetrators.
Following the brutal incident, Sarma left no stone unturned in communalising the crime and blaming the entire Muslim community in the district.
He also sought to score political points, claiming that the incident was collateral damage caused by the Congress’s win in the last Lok Sabha polls from the Nagaon constituency.
Also read: 151 MPs/MLAs Face Charges of Crimes Against Women, BJP Highest Among Parties, West Bengal in States
The CM’s immediate and deliberate attempt to stoke the flames of communalism over the gang rape incident didn’t end there. He claimed that it was not just Dhing or Nagaon where Hindu Assamese people were at the “receiving end of a Muslim conspiracy and evil design” but elsewhere in Assam as well, wherever Hindu (people) have been rendered as minorities.
He pinned the gang rape incident on “the nefarious, conspiratorial and evil designs of the community against Hindu Assamese people to force them to leave their lands and homes and flee so they (the Muslims) can grab their lands and properties and sell it off.”
Continuing his communal tirade, Sarma said:
“In Assam indigenous people are easy prey in places where they have no majority and are living in fear. We need to be sensitive about our own people who have become minorities. But in places where Assamese (Hindu) people are in majority they do not feel that the Assamese people (are) rendered minorities. The more sensitive we are, the more secure the Assamese people are. If there is an incident, we quickly blame it as the Assamese-Bengali incident. But no Bengali (Hindu) man will touch a woman. But Assamese will worry about Bengalis and vice-versa, and about Marwaris. Marwaris will worry about other Hindi speakers. But we do not care, do not know or try to find out who the real enemy is. This is the biggest irony and problem,” said Sarma.
He added, “This is not the first such case of attack in Dhing. There have been prior such cases before. There is no need for new laws. There are many laws. Actions should be taken by the chief minister. Police have machine guns, bullets and guns. So, why need a new law? The state government needs to do what it has to do. Police firepower is enough.”
“Such cases are on the rise after elections, and this has given a boost of confidence to people from a specified community,” he said.
Sarma’s attempt to add a communal colour has drawn a strong rebuke from the Congress, and from other quarters. The charge against the chief minister is that he is diverting the real issue of women and children’s safety in Assam.
The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) in a press meeting on Saturday strongly rebuked Sarma’s unwavering communal tethering on the issue.
The APCC demanded a white paper on crime against women in Assam from the BJP.
“It is also a matter of deeper concern that the head of the BJP government in Assam, honourable CM himself had confessed that women in Assam are not safe by listing out names of such cases that occurred in the last two months! The very fact that he himself read out the list in social media is amounting to taking responsibility that women in Assam are not safe under BJP’s rule. Is it not then a confession from the highest authority of the fact that there is failure of law and order with regard to women’s safety in Assam? Is it not then a confession that police and administration has failed in protecting women of our state?” APCC vice-president Bobbeeta Sharma said.
She added, “We demand that a white paper be presented with a comprehensive report on crime against women in Assam and steps taken to avert such crimes in the last 10 years. This demand should not be taken as a demand from a political party platform only but as that of every mother, every sister and every daughter of Assam who wants to live a safe and secure life in Assam.”
On Saturday, in another incident in neighbouring Hojai district, a teacher who happens to be Hindu was thrashed by some locals after video clips allegedly showing him behaving inappropriately with a student emerged on social media.
The Wire spoke to Akhil Ranjan Dutta, professor of Political Science at Gauhati University, he said:
“Criminals are criminals, and they will commit crimes. It is wrong to communalise crimes. What happened in Hojai about the Hindu teacher behaving inappropriately to a student tells (us) that it is wrong to communalise such cases. The rapists should be punished. They should be punished enough to shake the society. We should be avoiding communalising such incidents.”
The Wire also reached out to Miguel Das Queah, noted child rights’ activist. He said:
“Despite the POCSO Act, India’s comprehensive anti-child sexual abuse law, being enacted 12 years ago, we remain far from achieving the desired outcomes. As a practitioner deeply invested in addressing this issue for so many years now, I firmly believe that identifying the root causes of power and patriarchy, that nurtures and perpetuates sexual violence against women and children, is critical from the standpoint of prevention. These entrenched factors are exacerbated, post incidence of abuse, by the challenges of a cold and rickety criminal justice system, leading to hardships and delayed justice.”
He further added:
“To effect sustainable change, it is essential to address these core structural issues through sustained government and civil society organisation interventions. Also, merely pursuing criminals will not yield lasting solutions; we must confront the underlying cause of the crime itself. My experience has shown that sexual violence transcends socioeconomic boundaries, affecting all classes and communities. While some cases are reported, others remain hidden due to shame and stigma.”
