RECENT assaults in Delhi on women from the North-east were dismissed as isolated incidents, but with more such cases occurring at regular intervals India’s capital can no longer be considered safe for them and something needs to be done to stem this discriminating rot. Last week, the burnt body of 19-year-old Ranchamphy Hongray, a Tangkhul girl from Nagaland, was found in her sister’s Munirka flat in Vasant Vihar. According to reports, the police at first thought it was an accidental death but the post mortem revealed she was strangulated and burnt. A 34-year-old Delhi IIT Ph.D student, Pushpun Kumar Sinha, the victim’s neighbour, is under arrest. He reportedly confessed to having burnt her body after killing her to make it look like an accident. The girl had reportedly gone to Delhi to accompany her sister, who works in a firm in Connaught Place, back home for Christmas.
This was preceded by the alleged molestation of a girl from the North-east by a student in a south-east Delhi school. In another incident, a man from the region was allegedly roughed up on a street. In April last year, the bruised body of six-year-old Gaipuli Gangmei from Nagaland’s Peren village was found in a water tank in a building in Mahipalpur where she lived with her mother and grandmother. There had been several cases of Delhi’ites misbehaving with girls from the North-east and harassment by their landlords.
Some years ago, a man slashed the throat of a Tangkhul girl from Manipur’s Ukhrul district while she visiting the Gateway of India in Mumbai with a friend. A man was arrested and police said he was mentally deranged. Whether he was punished or not is not known but the Maharasthra government lost no time in paying compensation to the deceased’s parents.
In the case of Sinha also, the seemingly parlous Delhi police said he was a man of a “perverted and maniacal nature” and was suffering from an “obsessive compulsive disorder”. If on such a premise criminals are to be freed or dealt with leniently, there will be no end to crimes. At least a Union minister concerned is said to have ordered a probe into Hongray’s murder and sought a report within a week. An expert committee is being set up to suggest steps to protect and provide security to women from the North-east.
A girl student from Delhi on a visit to Shillong told a local daily that “being eve-teased in Delhi is almost a daily affair... we have taken it in our stride because reporting such incidents to the police will be even more frustrating”. Another student said “the worst nightmare is when the girls from the region have to travel in crowded buses. The men would prey on them”. Yet another said, “Delhi’ites look down upon people from the region… everyone, from autorickshaw drivers to others, take advantage of us.”
Condemnation by some MPs from the region and their laconic pronouncements of concern over such incidents are not enough. They must be seen to be consciously trying to confront these “socially discriminated murders” as the Naga Women’s Union of Manipur and Tangkhul Shana Long put it, and highligh the ordeals of North-east students in Parliament and how best to make Delhi safe for them. It is most unfortunate that tribal students should suffer social trauma, indiscrimination and prejudices in New Delhi’s cosmopolitan climate!
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ON 27 October about 150 media persons in Manipur surrendered their identity cards issued by the State Directorate of Information and Public Relations. For some time the newspapers in the state have not been publishing reports emanating from the government in protest against the police commandos’ harassment and threat to kill two scribes on the night of 10 October while they were returning home after night duty. The journalists want firm action taken against police personnel on duty on that particular night. If nothing comes through, their next step is to surrender the Press Club building to the government. Recently people from chief minister Ibobi Singh’s constituency allegedly attacked two media houses for publishing news unpalatable to them. The fact that Section 144 was in force in the area did not deter them. Never before have relations between the Press and the government soured to such an extent.