In the midst of stray but disturbing reports that insurgent groups in many parts of the country routinely attract female recruits for purposes of sexual exploitation and virtual bonded labour, it is high time the ruling UPA collated all police information from the States regarding such offences. The information needs to be presented to Parliament and given nation-wide publicity to end these heinous practices by criminal groups that mostly serve a foreign agenda and thrive on foreign funding, while masquerading as ?freedom fighters? for the oppressed rural poor.
Recent reports from Orissa'sremote jungle camps suggest that gun-totting Maoists are seriously abusing female cadres. Female combatants captured by police in recent months have revealed that far from being utilised in guerrilla operations, they are kept as virtual bonded labour and forced to cook and run household chores of the camp. The darker side of this shoddy treatment is outright sexual abuse; they are even forced to dance to entertain the male guerrillas. Even women guerrillas who have received arms training are being forced to serve as camp cooks and exploited sexually. In one district, the Maoists actually run a natyamandali (entertainment group) comprising women and children!
The problem has acquired a serious dimension as Maoists have spread their tentacles in 16 districts of the State. Village girls are frequently lured into the isolated jungle camps on promises of arms training and a better life, but this more often than not just boils down to providing personal pleasure to gun-totting males, police sources reveal. Last month, a young woman named Sulochana, aged 23, became pregnant and died at the Sambalpur District Hospital.
Police said that as the news of this sexual exploitation of women is spreading by word of mouth, village girls are no longer interested in joining the Maoists, but those in the Maoist camps are under strict vigil and their escape is difficult. Sadly, no human rights group or state women'scommission has addressed the issue of women misled to support a cause and subjected to sexual exploitation; a silence that could have a costly price.
In August last year, Tripura separatists were discovered to be not only sexually exploiting female cadres, but actually forcing the female tribal recruits to act in pornographic films at gunpoint. The films were marketed throughout South Asia and the huge profits used to purchase arms for the insurgency. The films were even dubbed in several foreign languages to improve their marketability, and the racket came to light when tribal girls managed to escape the camps and surrendered to the police, alleging sexual exploitation by male leaders. The girls were lured into the camps on the promise of guerilla training to create an independent tribal homeland, but were made to serve as mere cooks and run domestic chores in the camps.
Video production house owners in Tripura told the police that they received high rates to process the footage shot in the jungles into a sleek production. They said the insurgents were behind the films, and the raw stock clearly showed boys with automatic rifles and revolvers pulling the girls before the camera; these scenes are edited out and the pure pornography marketed. Worse however, was the revelation that the Tripura insurgents were also trafficking tribal girls for money in the South Asian markets, via Bangladesh. Sadly, most of these stories are blacked out by the national media. Yet the trend continues unchecked, and unless the personal culture of armed illegal groups in the country becomes a matter of national scrutiny, innocent girls will continue to be victimized by armed bandicoots.
Manipur'sChurachandpur district is another hotbed to sexual and physical violence. In January 2006, at least 25 women of the Hmar tribe were raped and molested by cadres of the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) in Parbung village in the Tipaimukh sub-division. Some of the girls were minors. Ten days later, on the night of January 16, 2006, over two dozen armed terrorists assaulted the villagers of Lungthulien and raped and molested 15 women and girls between the ages of 12 to 27 years. Despite the barbarity of the attacks, the authorities learnt of them only two months later, in March 2006, on account of the fear the terrorists had instilled in their victims.
It follows that there are several such unreported atrocities in all Indian states where gun totting criminals professing a form of Communist ideology freely indulge in rape and extortion. It is worth recalling that the popular tide against the Khalistani movement in Punjab turned when the Pak-trained terrorists were found to be indulging in rape and extortion on an unprecedented scale, and media reportage of their crimes matched the scale of their offensives.
For covert political reasons, this is not happening in the case of the Maoists and Christian insurgent groups in the north-east, and this is an aspect that deserves the close scrutiny of nationalist political parties. It is high time the Centre shed its apathy and ended its unconscionable silence in the matter. The sexual abuse of vulnerable tribal girls by armed goons is part of a larger pattern of violence and intimidation of large swathes of India'srural belt, and the Centre cannot view them as isolated incidents. Each group has close links with external agencies inimical to India; a coordinated strike could be catastrophic.
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