On 10 October 2021, two women students Shreya Kapoor Banerjee and Neha Tiwari were subjected to brutal sexual assault by Delhi Police personnel as a way to show them their ‘place’ because they were part of a protest outside Home Minister Amit Shah’s house demanding removal of Ajay Mishra Teni, accused as co-conspirator in Lakhimpur Kheri Massacre of farmers, from his post as a Union Minister and deputy of Amit Shah.
The entire country has seen how on 3rd October Teni’s son Ashish Mishra who is main accused plowed into a farmers’ process with his SUV to kill several of them. It is obvious that justice can not be met out to farmers. Ajay Mishra remains in his post as Minister of State for Home Affairs, after this horrible incident this is libellous.
To demand removal of Ajay Mishra Teni from his Ministerial position several students gathered at Amit Shah’s house in protest on 10 October. The protesters were immediately detained and forcibly removed by Delhi Police. The women protesters were targetted separately for sexual assault.
Women personnel of the Delhi Police lifted the clothes off one of the woman protester. They kicked another protester in her Private part while dragging her through road. After they were pushed inside the police bus for detention, and thus were already in custody, the police brutally and repeatedly kicked one of them in her private parts, telling them “We will show you your place.” Two other women protesters were also physically attacked while being in custody of police. This sexual assault was compounded by the fact that it was performed in front of male Delhi Police personnel who stood watching as voyeurs.
Disrobing and sexual assault are often meted out by police forces in India to women and men from marginalised communities to shame and humiliate them. The Justice Verma Committee too had taken note of such custodial sexual violence and recommended several safeguards against it – none of which were ever implemented. Now, the levels of impunity are such that the Delhi Police, in India’s national capital, in broad daylight, inflicts systematic acts of sexual humiliation and assault on women protestors right outside the home of their boss the Home Minister of India.
It is clear to us that these were not isolated acts committed by some rogue Delhi Police personnel. The manner in which the violence was meted out identically to both women, shows that the women personnel have received training and instructions to treat women protestors in this fashion “to show them their place.”
Women all over India reject this “place” of humiliation and sexual assault by the boots of power.
We stand together with Shreya and Neha in defiant protest. We declare that An Injury To One Is An Injury To All.
The Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni’s son has allegedly mowed down peaceful farmers while driving the minister’s SUV and allegedly shot dead another person. Modi regime. Home Minister Amit Shah had women students disrobed and sexually assaulted as punishment for daring to come outside his house to demand justice for the farmers.
We demand that ACP Chanakyapuri, Pragya Anand who clearly instructed the personnel on site to assault the women protestors, be sacked and all the personnel who carried out the sexual assault either as perpetrators or voyeurs be suspended and reprimanded.
We demand an end to sexual violence by uniformed and armed personnel in India.
We call upon people all over India, and allies all over the world, to protest these brazen acts of sexual violence meted out to women protestors by the Modi regime’s police force.