London, Nov. 12: A British journalist, who was raped by a guesthouse owner in Rajasthan last year, today spoiled attempts to promote “Incredible India” at the World Trade Market here by accusing the Indian government of not giving due attention to sexual crimes against women.
It’s the government’s allegedly cavalier attitude to crime against women that she says she finds incredible.
The 40-year-old journalist is furious that her attacker, Parbat Singh alias Rana, who ran Pardesi Rest House in the Lake City of Udaipur, got out on bail in July after being given a jail term of 21 years by a fast-track court following the rape on December 23 last year.
What has made the journalist angrier is that though she is now fighting to have the bail rescinded, government prosecutors failed to attend a Supreme Court hearing this week.
Dubbing Delhi the “rape capital of the world”, she said: “They are clearly not taking it seriously. If the government fails to turn up at the Supreme Court, that’s not taking it seriously, that’s the complete opposite.”
She added: “I’m not talking about just me, they need to take the level of sexual crime against women in India very seriously.”
Instead of being able to focus attention on trying to draw more western tourists during an economic downturn, the senior Indian official who performed the ribbon-cutting at the India pavilion had to defend the government.
Asked whether the journalist would see justice being done, Sujit Banerjee, secretary in the tourism ministry, said: “The Indian government is fully aware of all these incidents that happen, but nevertheless there are very strange incidents which occur.”
He went on: “The law has to take its own course, but the Indian government is fully conscious of its duties and responsibilities in this regard and these cases are taken very seriously. But you know and we know that the law has to take its own course and that will be done.”
The British media repeatedly highlights how, in India, it takes a rather long time for the law to take its own course. Last year, more than 50 lakh tourists visited India, with a significant proportion coming from America and the UK.
However, it has also been pointed out that, according to Indian government statistics released earlier this year, rape is apparently the country’s fastest-growing crime.
The rape and murder of 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling in Goa in February is one of a number of cases of foreign women who have been victims of sex crimes in India.
What Banerjee had come to talk was how India could halt the possible decline of tourist numbers and protect an important source of hard currency by developing rural infrastructure and “tapping into its unspoilt countryside”. Although this is all worthy stuff, it is the rape of foreign women which is going to attract the greatest attention. In this case, the victim, a journalist, will ensure her case does not get overlooked, especially as she has taken her case to the British High Commission in Delhi.
She says she was brutally assaulted, suffering bleeding and convulsions for days afterwards, and was forced to remain in India for four months while her attacker, who had forced his way into her room on the pretext of giving her an extra blanket, went on trial.
The journalist said: “My life’s changed forever, it will never be the same. Letting him go was almost as bad as being raped. I feel like the state used me and let it become a really high-profile case… when they let him out, they didn’t want anyone to know.”
Her petition will come up before a registrar at the Supreme Court on December 3, after which there will be a further hearing to decide whether Singh should be out on bail.
She explained: “I’ve tried to keep dignity in all of this. I’ve carried on with my life, but I’ve been hijacked by him being released. I just want him back in jail.”
