Lepcha

New Delhi, March 14: In pulling the trigger on his sexual tormentors, Nari Lepcha has yanked the shroud off a practice psychiatrists say is rampant, but defence researchers revealed that sodomy has never even been projected as a problem to them.

Attempts at sodomy in the security forces are not just common. They often end up being bloody, said psychiatrists who have worked with both victims and abusers in the forces.

Cases of sexual malpractice have, however, not even been “projected as problems” by the armed forces to their psychological research wing, the Defence Institute of Psychological Research.

While refusing to comment on the incidence of sexual malpractice in the forces, Dr William Selvamurthy, the chief controller of the psychological research institute, told The Telegraph: “Sodomy, rape or sexual malpractices have never been projected as problems to us.”

“There is, therefore, no work at all going on at the institute to deal with these issues as outcomes of stress-related problems,” Selvamurthy added.

The institute is busy working on another challenge facing the armed forces — the rising cases of suicide and fratricide.

Lepcha, a Sikkim constable of the Indian Reserve Battalion, killed five colleagues after one of them, a senior by rank, allegedly tried to sodomise him.

He has claimed he murdered the other four as they mocked his attempts to resist Lance Naik Vishal Tiwari.

Psychiatrists warn that the cloak of secrecy that the armed forces maintain over the “taboo” subject of internal acts of sexual abuse to safeguard the morale of personnel could prove to be counter-productive.

“No one is willing to talk about it openly. Whenever someone tries to raise the issue with the armed forces, they respond that the incidents are few and isolated. The topic for them is as taboo as AIDS used to be in India till sometime ago,” said Dr Jitendra Nagpal, a psychiatrist at the Vidyasagar Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences in Delhi.