annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights

INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 Haryana
named Tarun of Jamalpur Mohalla was
allegedly beaten up by the police in the
Civil Lines police station in Sonepat
because of a personal enmity with a
policeman. He was picked up from the
Ashok Nagar bazaar and taken to the Civil
Lines police station where he was beaten
up mercilessly without any crime. 11
III. Female infanticide and
trafficking
The imbalance in sex ratio because of
female infanticide has been having
disastrous effects and a cause of major
crimes. The sex ratio in Haryana is 861
females for every 1000 males. To meet the
demands of marriage, women from Bihar
and Jharkhand are trafficked and bought or
sold as “brides” in many parts of Haryana.
They are abused and often pushed into the
flesh trade. 12
Police sources reported in December
2003 that at least 5,000 girls from Assam
and West Bengal were “purchased” and
confined in various households in
Haryana’s Mewat region consisting of
Faridabad, Gurgaon and Rewari. 13
However, due to lack of awareness and
unwillingness of authorities to coordinate,
strengthen inter-state links, lack of proper
collection of information and inefficient
handling of cases, little action was taken to
combat trafficking.
On the night of 26 January 2004, one
Sandhya (name changed) reportedly
lodged a complaint with the Chandni
Chowk police station in New Delhi
alleging that a woman from the Old Delhi
76
Railway station abducted her in July 2003
and sold her to one Wazir at Sivan village
in Karnal district. An agriculturist of Ror
community, Wazir reportedly bought her
for Rs 35,000 as a bride for his unmarried
nephew, Joginder. Before she was sold
Sandhya was reportedly kept in Sivan
village for over a month, while her
abductors tried to strike a deal. She was
rescued by STOP, an NGO, with the help
of the Gurgaon police after she had written
a letter to her family giving details of her
whereabouts. 14
On 29 December 2003, a 15-year-old
dalit girl, who was living with her cousin
at Hardwar in Uttaranchal, was reportedly
brought to Ambala by a woman, a native
of Ambala, and allegedly sold her to one
Satish and his brothers in Hassanpur
village, near Karnal on 31 December 2003
without the knowledge of the girl. It was
only when the village women commented
at her saying “Bahu to suthri sai” (bride is
beautiful) that she came to realise that she
had been married. She was repeatedly
raped by relatives of Satish till evening of
13 January 2004 when she managed to
escape from Satish’s house at Hassanpur
and reported the matter to the police
station at Madhuban. A medical
examination reportedly confirmed the
rape. On 14 January 2004, the police
arrested Satish. 15
In July 2004, a minor girl from Assam,
identified as Padmavati, daughter of one
Sahil, alias Raghu, a resident of Tongla
village in the Kamrup district of Assam
was rescued by NGO, Shakti Vahini. She