Just a few days after the 60th anniversary of India’s ‘tryst with destiny’ - on 20 August to be precise - eleven tribal women were raped in Visakha District of Andhra Pradesh. Why does it come as no surprise that the perpetrators were twenty-one policemen from Andhra’s crack anti-naxal squad - the Greyhounds? It comes as even less of a surprise that till now, not one of them has been arrested!

The incident happened in a village called Vakapalli which lies in Nurmati Panchayat of Visakha District, 190 kms from the city of Vishakapatnam. An investigating team made up of CPI(ML) and AIPWA members visited the district, met the victims and talked to the people of the village on 24 August. The team consisted of Comrades B. Vasudeva Rao (Party District Secretary), R. Simhachalam (Convenor A.P.Girijan Sangam), K. Raghavulu and Devudu (State Committee Members, A.P.Girijan Sangam), R. Nagamani (AIPWA State Secretary), T. Aruna (AIPWA State President), K. Kumari (AIPWA State Jt. Secretary), Y. Manga Devi (AIPWA State Executive Member), and G. Satyanarayana (RYA State President).

Their investigation revealed that in the early hours of 20 August, the Greyhounds made a surprise attack on Vakapalli village and started destroying property and terrorizing the inhabitants. All this they did in the name of ‘combing operations’ to ‘flush out Maoists’. By the time they reached the village the men folk had already left for the forests and only old people, women and children remained in their homes. Maybe that is the way it was deliberately planned by the police. Women were busy with their household chores; some were fetching water from a nearby stream while others were beginning work in their turmeric fields, nearby. The Greyhounds went from door to door, ransacking the houses, some women were raped in their houses, while others were raped in the fields. The women were gang-raped by 3 or 4 policemen each. Most women were between the ages of 18 and 40 and one was a young girl who had just delivered a baby. This whole brutal operation went on for three to four hours.

When the team took this matter up with the government and demanded that the guilty be arrested, the answer they got from the AP Home Minister, the DGP and the SP was a united denial and defence of the police. In fact, they also made the counter accusation that the women who complained of rape were part of a ‘Maoist conspiracy’ to defame the police and stop the combing operations.

Many Left and democratic organizations protested against this horrible violence. AIPWA, the Girijan Sangam and CPI(ML) held protest rallies and dharnas at Kakinada, Prathipdu, Jaggampeta, Rajavommangi, Gangavaram, Yeleswararam and Sankhavaram Mandals of East Godavari district and Jangareddygudem of West Godavari district. They also held a roadblock outside the Narsipatnam Divisional Headquarters on 23, 24 and 25 August and submitted a memorandum of demands. This was followed up with a press conference by the investigating team which included the demand for the immediate disbanding of the vicious Greyhounds who are notorious for their fake ‘encounter killings’, rape and brutality. Many rallies and protests have been held demanding justice for the victims and the immediate arrest of the rapists.

Just a few weeks earlier, a report came from Bokaro District of Jharkhand where the police are regularly harassing, beating, molesting and raping women, again, in the name of combing operations against Maoists. The case of 15 year-old Phulmani stands out, in which seven policemen from the local police station, led by the station officer, forced their way into her house, beat her brutally, stripped her naked, trussed her hands and feet together and hung her from a tree. They continued torturing and humiliating her naked body. Finally they cut her down and proceeded to gang-rape her. Needless to say none of the police has been arrested and the state machinery, as usual, is busy trying to defend their law-enforcers and is putting the blame on the tribals.

In state after state, terror inflicted in the name of curbing “naxalism” has become the norm. The actual agenda is to cow down tribals and rural poor and take over their land, forests and mineral wealth. The Madhya Pradesh Special Areas Security Act, Chhattisgarh Public Security Act, ASFPA and other totally fascist and draconian laws are being deployed to give the state’s repressive machinery an even freer hand. Rape is the favourite weapon for the armed forces and police – be it in the North East or in the ‘Salwa Judum’ areas of Chhattisgarh or in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

However, Phulmani is angry and far from being demoralized or cowed, is ready to join the women’s front and fight for justice just as the men and women in Vakapalli are burning to have revenge. It is for us to ensure that their anger and frustration of the tribals and rural poor are channeled into positive revolutionary construction.