25 dowry deaths, 72 children killed, 187 rapes in first three months of 2018: ASK

At least 25 women were either tortured to death or committed suicide over dowry across the country in the first three months of the year, according to human rights advocates Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK).

ASK published a statement on Saturday providing numbers for such HR violations where it said its numbers were derived from its own findings that collate reports published in eight leading national dailies.

It found at least 55 women were tortured over dowry. Among them 21 were tortured to death, 4 committed suicide and 9 were driven from the husband’s homes, the report added. 

In the report ASK also said that 187 women had been raped and 19 of them were killed after rape during the period (January – March).

They also found two women committed suicide after being raped, and 21 women survived rape attempts. 

At least 107 women were tortured by their families.  Some 75 women were killed, 14 were committed suicide over the tortures and 18 were tortured physically, according to the report.

At least 422 children were either killed or tortured across the country in the three months since January. Among them 71 children were killed, and 26 committed suicide, it mentioned.

Twenty-seven cases of women being sexually harassed were reported by its sources, ASK said. Among them one committed suicide and two males were even killed while protesting such incidents, the report said.

At least 11 housemaids were tortured in different ways. Among them three were killed mysteriously.

The incidents of sexual harassment and violence, family violence, torture over dowry, housemaids tortures, throwing Acid, tortures by arbiter and Fatawa also increased in last three months, it added.      

In the statement ASK also found that at least 109 incidents of political violence occurred in the period under review. In those incidents 11 were killed and 1488 were injured.

At least 46 people were killed in “crossfire” with law enforcement agencies during the period, it added.

Among them, 16 were killed in “crossfire” with Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), 19 with police, five with Detective Branch (DB) of police and the rest were killed in “crossfire” with other agencies, it said. 

They also said the word ‘crossfire’ was taken from the national dailies.

In the report, ASK said 25 prisoners were ‘‘killed’’ in police jail custody. Of them 11 were prisoners and 14 were jail inmates.

At least 65 journalists were tortured and harassed in different ways, received threats and faced obstruction during performing their duties, it added.

At least three were tortured to death, seven sustained injuries, three were abducted by Indian Border Security Force of India (BSF) in different bordering areas of the country, ASK said.

16 were killed in mass beating and section 144 was imposed in 8 different places over the country during the period.

Five houses of Hindu community were vandalised and torched while 17 idols and temples and Puja mandaps were attacked in last three months, ASK said.

The rights group also said plainclothes men identifying themselves as law enforcers picked up four people. Among them two were returned while one was shown arrested. 

Source: unb