They masturbated at us: Delhi's Gargi College students say group of men broke in, groped and harassed girls

[Stuge]

2 hours ago, Mariyam said:

@coffee_rules

 

The situation in India, re: sexual assaults/rape is much worse than what any official piece of document tells you.

 

On and off, I work with an NGO which is mainly involved in litigating for various issues that women (mainly of the lower end of the socio-economic ladder) face, I may not have exact numbers, but there was a backlog of more than 1000+ separate instances of rape/sexual assault. Mind you these do not include cases of sexual assault/ and attempt to murder. And a good 35-40% of these were unreported to the police. That is the women ( at times young girls too), or someone they knew first came to the NGO and then with a lawyer went to the police. A good 15-20% of the instances involved the police barfing on filing of an FIR. 

 

The cops would simply refuse to file FIRs ( mainly in case of domestic sexual abuse) saying stuff like ghar ki baat apas mein suljhao, don't come here or your life will be ruined etc etc. At times they would outright lie about the victim being late to complain (some victims take a lot of time to open up and complain) saying it has passed the statute of limitations. In India, rape has no statute of limitations. There have been instances when the cops asked the victim to eat, shower and then come to the police station in the right attire/frame of mind to give her statement. Then they ended up telling her that now all proof has been washed off. All this in spite of POSCO. All this after the Nirbhaya case.

 

Without a lawyer, at best, the cops would get hold of the guy/guys who committed the rape. Most of the time this doesn't require much effort as the victim knows the rapists and can help the cops locate/identify them. The cops then trash them and extort money from them for the rest of their lives. The victim would have no semblance of justice. Or compensation. On the other hand the cops would show zero empathy to the victim and there have been cases where victims have been hit when they refused to move when shoo-ed away. In my observation, for any woman who is not  at least from the middle class (and has the necessary awareness of her rights), expecting justice in cases of sexual assault in this country is like chasing a mirage. 

One could argue that a response of the cops and the general sense of let down (and humiliation) is just as pernicious to the victims self esteem than the act of rape.

 

This is about women whose FIRs weren't filed. Not to mention the multitudes of cases where the women don't report the crime. And all of this is in Mumbai and its environs, where the cops are supposed to be 'sensitized'. Even on our ICF, I read a lot of people cheering when the 4 suspects in the veterinary doctor gangrape/murder case were extra judicially executed by the cops. The same set of cops wasted 3 hours asking humiliating questions to the doctors relatives when they could have possibly saved her. Yet there is no judicial enquiry into any of this. Not that I know of at least.

a @coffee_rules  or @Mariyam may find India (relatively) safe because we are not from that category of people whom the cops can't take lightly.

 

If India aspires to be a superpower of any sort, we must first make justice dispensing and policing a lot more robust. Have to agree with what @Muloghonto said in another thread. Better forensics, better policing, more fast track courts etc.

 

Also, re: Sweden: rape in Sweden is not just penetrative sex without consent. It includes groping, other sexual acts and at times 'severe' sexual gestures aimed to ruin the victims peace of mind/self esteem. Hence the spike in their statistics. If India were to include these acts in Rape statistics and not barf on FIRs, we would definitely top the charts.

 

I never understand the fixation people have with ranking for women safety in the world. Okay, we maybe not be the worst but we could be in the worst 10-15. How does that change anything? The idea is to better the lot of our womenfolk here and give them and all poor people (irrespective of gender) some chance at justice.

If we get bad press for rapes, we deserve it. The situation is bleak and needs to be called out.

It's like  undermining woman safety and justifying the same by comparing .

 

Areey dekho hum unsee ache and do fake chest beating .

[MechEng]

@Stuge Is there a chick you like studying at Gargi?

[MechEng]

@Mariyam Fast track courts can be dangerous too. Let's say a hypothetical scenario in future when even children start having their own rights group, a kid may sue their parents for not fulfilling an instant demand. The parents may get jailed here easily.

[coffee_rules]

2 hours ago, Stuge said:

It's like  undermining woman safety and justifying the same by comparing .

 

Areey dekho hum unsee ache and do fake chest beating .

No, let’s bring down the country by hyping every fake story about how saffron clad jai shree Ram chanting youth brigade is going around molesting women, just to win a few political points

[EnterTheVoid]

Hard to fathom we are even debating whether India is safe for women or not.

 

Comparing ourselves to other countries is a distraction at best, denial at worst. Doesn't change the ground realities that Indian women face everyday.

 

So what the India is safer than other countries in some "XYZ" list. Whoop-de-do, that's nothing to write home about. Denial mentality of "Hey, we're bad. But at least we are not bad as them" in full swing.

Edited February 18, 2020 by EnterTheVoid

[diga]

What's in full swing is the derailing of this thread..digressing from the OP 

 

 

Edited February 18, 2020 by diga

[coffee_rules]

@Mariyam I hate to compare countries on crime rate stats on women, but at the same time, I hate people showing Nirbhaya as the yardstick to compare and bring the debate down to one bad incident. There are Nirbhaya cases in every country, but it should be shameful enough that it happened in India, but world is a bad place and bad things happen to good people all the time. Also, creating fake narratives that saffron activists masturbated in front of girls while chanting jai Shree Raam or threw semen filled balloons on Holi day. I have said enough, but if you guys think it dilutes the crimes on women in India, then I will stop contributing to this thread, you guys can keep vilifying to suit your agenda.

Edited February 18, 2020 by coffee_rules

[Stuge]

4 hours ago, coffee_rules said:

No, let’s bring down the country by hyping every fake story about how saffron clad jai shree Ram chanting youth brigade is going around molesting women, just to win a few political points

Hence , twitter thread of student was posted .

 

 

 

Media is more interested in knowing if the molestors were holding saffron flag or not .

[coffee_rules]

36 minutes ago, Stuge said:

Hence , twitter thread of student was posted .

 

 

 

Media is more interested in knowing if the molestors were holding saffron flag or not .

Yes, liberal media. Who perpetrated that report to begin with? There are students threads refuting the saffron angle, but reporting the miscreant angle

Edited February 18, 2020 by coffee_rules

[Mariyam]

2 hours ago, coffee_rules said:

@Mariyam I hate to compare countries on crime rate stats on women, but at the same time, I hate people showing Nirbhaya as the yardstick to compare and bring the debate down to one bad incident. There are Nirbhaya cases in every country, but it should be shameful enough that it happened in India, but world is a bad place and bad things happen to good people all the time. Also, creating fake narratives that saffron activists masturbated in front of girls while chanting jai Shree Raam or threw semen filled balloons on Holi day. I have said enough, but if you guys think it dilutes the crimes on women in India, then I will stop contributing to this thread, you guys can keep vilifying to suit your agenda.

 

1) Who has shown the Nirbhaya case as a yardstick? *You* are the one who asked for data and facts to establish that India is an unsafe country for women. My post mentioning you was to address that question. Who have I vilified? What is my agenda?

2) Girl students have been assaulted on campus. The principal's response was to ask the complaining girl students to not attend the festival if they have a *problem*. This much has been corroborated by multiple sources. All of this is a much bigger issue than the ensuing fight over narrative. The police have made their arrests. Once they are done with their investigation, the identity of the perpetrators will be clear. @Stuge has asked you multiple times to go through the student's twitter account for her version (unpoliticized) of events.

 

 

Edited February 18, 2020 by Mariyam

[Mariyam]

11 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

Sweden classifies it as sexual assault. India has seperate categories - rape, molestation, upsetting a woman’s dignity etc.

and yes, virtually every western country is orders of magnitude worse. In 2018, total number of cases in India registered under all three categories was 45,000. In UK it was 80,000. 80,000 out of 70 million vs 45,000 of 1.3 billion. That’s per capita, 40x more. 

This is because of one simple reason: bar culture. That’s the gateway to most sexual inappopriate behavior and india doesn’t really have a culture of that 

 

My educated guess here would be. The 45000 registered cases in India would be predominantly consist of rape cases. Within the 45,000 the percentage of molestation and of the 'lesser' sexual crimes registered would be far lower than that of rapes. Simply because in a nation where women are apprehensive about reporting rape, you can imagine that reporting of 'lesser' sexual offenses is going to be only a fraction of the actual cases. The cops simply wouldn't take this stuff seriously enough and consequently, over time, victims simply would shrug it off/normalize such behaviour and move on. 

45000 a year is roughly 150 a day. Of all kinds of sexual crimes. This number is criminally low. The number on such incidents in a metro/local train/public transport in only Delhi and Mumbai combined may exceed 150 on any given day. Like I mentioned in my post to @coffee_rules. These official numbers mean nothing.

 

Edited February 18, 2020 by Mariyam

[Mariyam]

7 hours ago, MechEng said:

@Mariyam Fast track courts can be dangerous too. Let's say a hypothetical scenario in future when even children start having their own rights group, a kid may sue their parents for not fulfilling an instant demand. The parents may get jailed here easily.

In this strange hypothetical scenario, the kids and/or their rights groups can sue the parents even in the absence of any fast track courts also.

I have read about a similar such case from Australia. The parents' lawyer made it a "need vs want" arguement and anyways in such cases incarcerating the parent(s) is not the punishment. That punishes the dependent ie the kid(s) too.

[Muloghonto]

19 minutes ago, Mariyam said:

 

My educated guess here would be. The 45000 registered cases in India would be predominantly consist of rape cases. Within the 45,000 the percentage of molestation and of the 'lesser' sexual crimes registered would be far lower than that of rapes. Simply because in a nation where women are apprehensive about reporting rape, you can imagine that reporting of 'lesser' sexual offenses is going to be only a fraction of the actual cases. The cops simply wouldn't take this stuff seriously enough and consequently, over time, victims simply would shrug it off/normalize such behaviour and move on. 

45000 a year is roughly 150 a day. Of all kinds of sexual crimes. This number is criminally low. The number on such incidents in a metro/local train/public transport in only Delhi and Mumbai combined may exceed 150 on any given day. Like I mentioned in my post to @coffee_rules. These official numbers mean nothing.

 

All rape reporting fall between 1-3% for family related rape, 10-25% for outsider related rape. Variances exist due to culture but 40x stat cannot be ignored. Again, the numbers are low because India doesn’t have the prime avenue of groping, rape, coercion etc that happens in the west: mass alcohol fuelled bar culture. Everyone who lives in the west knows that 90% of the times women are molested, it’s at bars, dance floors of nightclubs or hookup with a guy through these means. Doesn’t exist in India to the same scale hence its 40x low. There are more bars and nightclubs in a Canadian town of 100K people than in Delhi or Mumbai 

 

and if official numbers mean nothing, then crime stats mean nothing india == Somalis == Japan in all crimes. Ok then 

Edited February 18, 2020 by Muloghonto

[EnterTheVoid]

On 2/16/2020 at 9:45 AM, coffee_rules said:

Why is it a foregone conclusion? Have you ever lived in India? I have family there and visit twice a year. It is as safe as living in the west or anywhere in the world, if not worse. What makes you say things as though it has to be accepted without any factual backing? Just because some NYT or WaPo opeds say it, doesn’t count it as a fact.

Putting everything else aside, if the bolded part doesn't scream denial, delusion and outright lies all in one go, than I really don't know how the issue of women's safety in India can be "fixed".

Edited February 18, 2020 by EnterTheVoid

[Muloghonto]

2 minutes ago, EnterTheVoid said:

Putting everything else aside, if the bolded part doesn't scream denial, delusion and outright lies all in one go, than I really don't know where to go from here. Or how things can be "fixed"

It isn’t any longer given crime rates and sex crime rates in Canada, USA, UK, Sweden & Germany. Most places in the west, you are more likely to get some sort of physical crime against you than in India. You are way more likely to die in India due to shoddy construction related collapses and natural disasters 

[Mariyam]

6 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

All rape reporting fall between 1-3% for family related rape, 10-25% for outsider related rape. Variances exist due to culture but 40x stat cannot be ignored. Again, the numbers are low because India doesn’t have the prime avenue of groping, rape, coercion etc that happens in the west: mass alcohol fuelled bar culture. Everyone who lives in the west knows that 90% of the times women are molested, it’s at bars, dance floors of nightclubs or hookup with a guy through these means. Doesn’t exist in India to the same scale hence its 40x low. There are more bars and nightclubs in a Canadian town of 100K people than in Delhi or Mumbai 

 

and if official numbers mean nothing, then crime stats mean nothing india == Somalis == Japan in all crimes. Ok then 

Would you know the factor/percentage for under-reporting of sexual crimes in India which aren't rape? 

 

Does the 45,000 a year for all sexual crime seem realistic to you?

[Muloghonto]

25 minutes ago, Mariyam said:

Would you know the factor/percentage for under-reporting of sexual crimes in India which aren't rape? 

 

Does the 45,000 a year for all sexual crime seem realistic to you?

Having 20-40x less bars and nightclubs where 90% of sexual assault take place or the perp meets the victims, contributing to 30-40x less sexual assaults per capita does make sense. Seems like you are going by a bunch of media opinions formed over time than actual data. 

[Mariyam]

7 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

Having 20-40x less bars and nightclubs where 90% of sexual assault take place or the perp meets the victims, contributing to 30-40x less sexual assaults per capita does make sense. Seems like you are going by a bunch of media opinions formed over time than actual data. 

Not at all.

I am not contesting any of your posts here.

 

I was actually asking you if have any data/hypothesis for under reporting of the 'lesser' sexual crimes in India.

Also, I was asking you if the figures you posted re:India seemed realistic to you?

Edited February 18, 2020 by Mariyam

[Muloghonto]

27 minutes ago, Mariyam said:

Not at all.

I am not contesting any of your posts here.

 

I was actually asking you if have any data/hypothesis for under reporting of the 'lesser' sexual crimes in India.

Also, I was asking you if the figures you posted re:India seemed realistic to you?

Yes they do seem realistic to me for the reasons I said above. All sexual crimes are underreported, bhabhi-jaan 

[coffee_rules]

11 hours ago, Mariyam said:

 

1) Who has shown the Nirbhaya case as a yardstick? *You* are the one who asked for data and facts to establish that India is an unsafe country for women. My post mentioning you was to address that question. Who have I vilified? What is my agenda?

2) Girl students have been assaulted on campus. The principal's response was to ask the complaining girl students to not attend the festival if they have a *problem*. This much has been corroborated by multiple sources. All of this is a much bigger issue than the ensuing fight over narrative. The police have made their arrests. Once they are done with their investigation, the identity of the perpetrators will be clear. @Stuge has asked you multiple times to go through the student's twitter account for her version (unpoliticized) of events.

 

 

Read thru the initial responses and figure out who brought in Nirbhaya to the debate. The line of the questioning went like,

=> India is unsafe for women - A blanket statement. This is a generalization

=> If I say,"India is not exception, it is as safe as anyother country if not worse", I am accused of being insensitive and diluting women's place in India, how can I say it after Nirbhaya.

I have never refuted that girls were not assaulted. In fact, the report is that the event was open for boys of other DU colleges, while miscreants entered the college drunk and assaulted the girls. But, there is a precedent with a DU girls' college (LSR), where ther was a case of Holi incident involving balloons filled with semen. Look at the western press on that. The investigation lead to it being a fake story. But the western media never recalled back and India is still the place where girls are showered with balloons filled with semen during Holi.

 

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bj5bwq/indian-women-are-protesting-semen-filled-balloons-during-holi

 

So, given that, we all have to take the claims with a grain of salt. I did go through the girl Nityanandini Rao's account. She is a JNU type DUSU leader - left leaning, BJP/RSS hating. I can't believe whatever she says. Today they are opposing a PIL filed on their behalf for a CBI investigation. Why should they oppose, when they have genuine grievances?