North East students raped in Delhi

Sexual Assault Cases against north east students in Delhi 

May 2005: The targeting of northeastern girls for sexual abuse was highlighted the first time when a call centre employee from Mizoram was gang-raped in Southwest Delhi in 2005, infamously referred as the “Dhaula Kuan gang rape case”, which grabbed the attention of the national and international media at that time. The 20-year-old Delhi University student was abducted by four carborne accused in the wee hours of May 8, 2005. They later dumped her in Dhaula Kuan after raping her.

October 2009: Ramchanphy Hongray, a 19-year-old girl from Manipur was sexually assaulted, strangled to death and burnt at her rented apartment at Munirka in south Delhi by Pushpam Sinha, a PhD scholar working at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

December 2010: A 30-year-old call centre employee, hailing from Manipur, was picked up by four drunken men in south Delhi and gang-raped for over 40 minutes in a moving vehicle. According to the police, the woman had been staying in the area for the past four years. She and her colleague, also from the Northeast, had told the cab driver to drop them outside the gate of their colony. They were walking towards the gate and were barely 100 metres from it, when four men who were sitting inside a tempo goods carrier, grabbed one of them. The other woman managed to escape.

May 29, 2013: A.S. Reingamphi from Choithar village, Ukhrul district of Manipur, was found dead in her rented accommodation in Chirag Dilli of South Delhi. There were signs of brutal assault on her nose, face and legs.The deceased girl’s relatives submitted a complaint to the police station charging the landlord and his brother-in-law of sexually assaulting and murdering Reingamphi, but no action was taken. It was only after three days of sustained pressure after hundreds of protesters gathered in various parts of Delhi, that the police finally lodged a complaint.

February 8, 2014: A 14-year-old tribal girl from Manipuri was allegedly raped by her landlord’s son on Friday night at Munirka, a suburb in south Delhi. The accused identified as Ashish Tokas,19, alias Vicky, was arrested. A preliminary probe revealed that Friday’s sexual assault took place at 10.30 pm when the victim, who used to live with her relative’s family, had stepped out to buy some household items -- Vim Bar -- from a shop near her house. “While she was returning Vicky grabbed her from behind, gagged and dragged her inside his house nearby. He beat her up and confined her for over an hour and raped her.,” said a senior police officer.

Rape victims from North-East flee Delhi

Shunned by neighbours people and also by people of their own community, the victims had no option but to leave the city, said Madhu Chandra, spokesperson of North-East Support Centre and Helpline in Delhi.

“All such victims face discrimination at home as well as workplace, apart from having to suffer lewd comments,” said Chandra, citing the example of the most sensational abduction-cum-gangrape of a 30-year-old call centre executive at Dhaula Kuan on November 24 last year

“In around 40 instances of crime against women in the past two years, the police refused to register a case when the victims approached them,” Chandra alleged. And the government’s assurances of relief and rehabilitation remained mere promises. “We approached the government many times seeking rehabilitation of the victims, but no steps were taken,” he said.

Initially, the victims try to cope with their trauma and agony and within a few months, they break down and leave the unforgiving city.

“Like the Dhaula Kuan rape victim, all others too from the contiguous Northeastern states known as Seven Sisters - Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim - called it left after finding neither understanding nor support from neighbours and associates, said Chandra.

Changing residence and workplace makes it worse. The victims gradually get isolated. “Women from the Northeast feel very vulnerable here,” said Chandra.

According to figures provided by the Support Centre, of the total 63 cases of crime against women in last five years - including five rapes, five attempt to rape and 38 molestation cases - all ten victims of rape or attempt to rape returned home without fulfilling their dream of availing higher education or jobs.

Mamta Sharma, chairperson of National Commission for Women, said: “It is sad to know that rape victims had to leave the city. But they never approached us. We generally provide shelters, counselling and rehabilitation programmes for the victims.”

She admitted that victims of rape need a certain level of protection until they are capable of returning to normal life. “Whenever any kind of sexual harassment happens at the workplace, we generally approach the institution and initiate action against the culprits,” she claimed.