She was lying on a hospital stretcher, immobile, groaning in pain. Her severely wounded vagina and rectum were bleeding incessantly. She regained consciousness before being brought to the hospital. The nightmare had not been over till then. The gruesome experience of being tortured and raped in the prison was still fresh in her mind. So as the grinning, ugly faces, shoving stones inside her… How she wanted to scream aloud, how she wanted to break free, but they didn’t let her. They continued to torture until she lost her consciousness…
Soni Sori, the imprisoned Adivasi school teacher in Chhattisgarh wrote to her lawyer in a letter, ‘after repeatedly giving me electric shocks, my clothes were taken off. I was made to stand naked. (Superintendent of Police) Ankit Garg was watching me, sitting on his chair. While looking at my body, he abused me in filthy language and humiliated me. After some time, he went out and sent three boys. (…) started molesting me and I fell after they pushed me. Then they put things inside my body in a brutal manner. I couldn’t bear the pain and I was almost unconscious. After a long time, I regained consciousness. By then, it was already morning…”
Soni Sori was arrested in New Delhi on October 4, 2011. The Adivasi School Teacher, hails from Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, was accused of being a courier between the Maoists and the Essar Group, a multinational corporation with mining assets, active in the tribal belts, allegedly helping her own nephew, Lingaram Kodopi. Kodopi has been arrested on the same ground of helping the Maoists, although he is a journalist in actual life and has been reporting on the abysmal human rights record of Chhattisgarh Government from the ground. Despite of all the efforts and appeals to numerous courts made by Sori, she was handed over to the Chhattisgarh police. Taken to the state, she was severely beaten, sexually assaulted and given electric shocks by the police in custody. On 9th October, 2011, Soni Sori was brutally tortured and gang raped. Being taken to the hospital and brought back to the prison after minimum medical aid, she was repeatedly denied treatment. Sori documented her torture in letters she wrote to her lawyer that was quoted above.
A video has been launched to mark International Women’s Day on 8th March, 2012, on behalf of the concerned citizens all over the world where women activists read Soni Sori’s letter to her lawyer describing the brutal nature of the torture she had to bear. According to the human rights activists, ‘A subsequent independent medical examination, done in NRS Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, under the supervision of the Supreme Court of India, found two sizable stones lodged in her vagina and another in her rectum.’ The medical report also stated that she has sustained a head injury, specifically by some blunt object, she has tenderness in her back and her fingers blackened, which are the clear signs of electrocution. Sori’s Counsel has denied the charges against her and demanded that she has been falsely implicated. He also urged the Supreme Court of India that Sori should be treated outside Chhattisgarh and demanded an impartial probe in the matter.
Currently imprisoned inside the Central Jail, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, Soni is in urgent need of medical treatment for the injuries that resulted from her torture. In another letter to her lawyer, she stated that the doctors in the Raipur jail have denied treatment on ground that she is a ‘Naxalite prisoner’! While treating for injuries in the Raipur Hospital, Sori was chained to hr bed which is a human rights violation and is against The Supreme Court’s order. When she was brought to Kolkata for a medical examination, she had been kept inside a police lock up for 24 hours, which is also against the Apex Court’s order. Thus, her rights have been severely and repeatedly violated.
Protesting the nature of inhumanity upon her, Sori went on hunger strike, for about 20 days, till Feb 27th, and now her health is deteriorating every day. The National Human Rights Commission and the National Commission for Women filed a series of petitions to the Delhi High Court, demanding impartial investigation in the custodial rape incident. Human Rights Watch urged the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Monmohan Singh to order an impartial investigation in the matter. They also urged the Government of India to move Sori from Chhattisgarh and put her somewhere in Delhi where Chhattisgarh police do not have access. Amnesty International declared Soni Sori as the ‘Prisoner of Concern’ earlier this year. The Supreme Court of India also instructed Chhattisgarh police to clear their stand on the cops who tortured the alleged Maoist activist. But, Sori is yet to get justice.
In the middle of March, Chhattisgarh police failed to bring Soni Sori in two court hearings subsequently as her health condition has been deteriorated. The police has informed the press later that Miss Sori is not well and she had to be admitted in a government hospital in Chhattisgarh. But, Soni Sori has urged to get the treatment somewhere outside Chhattisgarh as she was tortured inside the state prison. Moreover, she was sent back to the jail by the Government hospital doctors, who, after a primary investigation, issued a statement to the media that Sori is lying! Despite of all the efforts of the human rights activists, her fundamental rights have been repeatedly violated. In her absence, the custodial transformation and an extension order has been signed by the Additional District Judge, which is completely illegal. Instead of investigating the police officials involved in Sori’s torture, Ankit Garg, the Superintendent of Police who ordered and oversaw the torture according to Sori, was given a national award for gallantry last January 26, the Indian Republic Day!
A team of activists, representing at least 40 human and gender rights organisation, went to meet Sori in Raipur Central Jail in January but was denied access. They alleged that the Chhattisgarh police are trying to cover up the real investigation by not allowing outsiders to meet Sori in jail. Nidhi Agarwal, the representative of Saheli Women’s Resource Center claimed, ‘“We came to visit Soni Sori on the invitation of N. Bajinder Kumar, principal secretary to the Chief Minister. We met him in Delhi last year, where he assured us that Soni Sori was safe and told us we were welcome to come and see for ourselves.” On their arrival in Chhattisgarh however, the team was not allowed to meet Ms. Sori due to “security considerations.” And the reason behind? The Jail Superintendent wrote in a letter issued to the group as a reply, “Soni Sori has already met with her lawyer …considering the security of the jail and of Sori…it is not appropriate for more than three persons to enter the jail.” Obviously, this letter couldn’t stop the group from involving the press. They issued a press release recently which clearly states that they firmly believe, the ‘security reason’ is nothing but a ‘smokescreen’ to prevent them from meeting Soni Sori, and also a violation of her right as a prisoner.
Soni claimed in her letter that she is only one of the many women prisoners who was sexually assaulted and tortured inside the jail. That clearly indicates that there are many more brutalities occurred inside the darkness of prison we rarely know about. Do we care to know? Sori wrote to the Chief Justice of Supreme Court of India, “Giving me electric shocks, stripping me naked, shoving stones inside me… Was the abuse on me not enough? This is a plea from a helpless daughter…This is a mother’s plea for her children…”
Do you hear, India?
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