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NEPAL: A 14-year old Dalit girl raped and murdered by a group of upper caste men

September 29, 2004

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ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAM

30 September 2004
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UA-129-2004: NEPAL: A 14-year old Dalit girl raped and murdered by a group of upper caste men

NEPAL: Rape and murder; Police inaction; Caste discrimination
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Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that Sita Sada, a 14-year old Dalit girl, was raped and killed by upper caste men on 17 May 2004. According to our information, while Sita was sleeping at night, more than 10 men came and dragged her out of the house. Two days later, a farmer discovered Sita’s naked dead body with her teeth knocked out near the riverside far from her home. The postmortem report by the District Hospital in Inaruwa said that she was raped and killed by suffocation.

Even though the suspects were arrested, they were released on the same day due to the protest of their family and relatives, all belonging to the upper class. Although one of them was held in the District Police custody for two months, he was released after one girl gave false testimony. Since then, however, no proper inquiries into the case have been conducted and Sita’s family was forced to move to another place for their safety.

Your urgent action is required to intervene in this matter. Please urge the local authorities to conduct an immediate impartial investigation into this case and prosecute the responsible perpetrators. Adequate compensation and protection should also be provided to the victim’s family.

Urgent Appeals Desk

Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)

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DETAILED INFORMATION:

Name of the victim: Sita Sada, 14 years, student of grade 7, resides in 6 Inaruwa, Sunsari, Nepal
Date of incident: 17-19 May 2004
Place of incident: the victim’s residence in 6 Inaruwa, Sunsari
Alleged perpetrators: 1) Shukhi Lal Urau, 2) Chun Chun Chaudhary, 3) Arun Chaudhary, 4) Amod Chaudhary, 5) Dipesh Chaudhary, 6) Prabhu Pandit, 7) Rambilash Pandit, 8) Chandeshwor Chaudhary, 9) Jaganath Chaudhay, 10) Parmeshwor Chaudhary 11) some other men

Case details:

Sita Sada (14), a Dalit student of grade 7, was dragged out of her home by more than 10 men on 17 May 2004. Her dead body was found two days later, naked and with her teeth knocked out of her mouth. The postmortem report said that she had been raped and killed by suffocation.

On 17 May 2004 at around 11:00pm, while Sita Sada and her family members were sleeping, the alleged perpetrators, masked, kicked open the door. When the door was opened, Mr. Tiru Sada, father of Sita Sada, asked for their identification. However, the perpetrators shouted and abused Mr. Tiru Sada in bad language, and immediately tied him up and pressed his head down on the floor, to prevent him from recognizing them.

Then, the perpetrators entered the next room where Mr. Tiru's second wife Ramwati Sada and his eldest daughter Sita Sada were sleeping. They forced both women to come out of the house, saying that some of their friends were waiting outside for some inquiry. But both Ramwati and Sita refused to come out. As the perpetrators tried to drag Sita out, Ramwati shouted loudly asking what they were going to do to her daughter. Even though Ramwati tried to obstruct them, they hit her on the back of her head. Ramwati started bleeding and nearly fainted. Then, both Ramwati and Sita were dragged out of the house by some of the perpetrators, while three others were still holding Mr. Tiru down.

After at about five minutes, the three men released Tiru and threatened him, "If you tell anyone about the incident, something bad will happen to you." After the three men left, Mr. Tiru immediately started waking the neighbors up and told them of the incident. All the neighbors scattered to find Ramwati and Sita. They found Ramwati lying unconscious. When she come to, she said the perpetrators had taken Sita north. While some of the villagers took Ramwati to the hospital, the others went north. Even though the villagers searched for Sita till the next morning, they could not find her.

On May 18 in the morning, the villagers found Shukhi Lal Urau, one of the alleged perpetrators, who was sleeping under a bridge far from the village. They also discovered bamboo sticks around him, which had allegedly been used in the attack and his shirt was stained with blood. They brought Shukhi Lal Urau to the village and asked him about the incident. However, he denied any knowledge about it and said that he had gone to another village to steal goods from a house. Villagers called the police of the District Police office at Inaruwa and handed over Shukhi Lal to the police. After the police came to arrest Shukhi, he confessed that he had come to the victim’s house with his friends.

On May 19 in the morning, a farmer found Sita Sada’s dead body buried near the riverside where Shukhi had been sleeping when the villagers found him. When Sita’s dead body was discovered she was naked and her teeth fell out of her mouth. The police took the dead body and the postmortem was conducted at District Hospital at Inaruwa. The postmortem report said that Sita had been raped and killed by suffocation.

After Sita’s family and the villagers named suspects, more than 10 men from different villages were arrested in relation to the rape and murder of Sita by the police. But the upper caste (Chaudhary and Brahmin) villagers and relatives of those suspects came to the police station and pressured the police to release them. They also alleged that the arrested men could not have committed such a crime because they belonged to the upper caste and were sons of landlords [landowners] in the village. The Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) who was in charge of the investigation then released all of the suspects on the same day they were arrested, with no further investigation.

Only Shukhi Lal Urau was held in the Sunsari District Police Custody in Inaruwa for two months. However, he was also released as the police found him ‘not guilty’. This was because a woman, Kamali Urau, falsely testified that she had been with him that night under the bridge, as she claimed they were in love and had been planning to run away together. Shukhi also retracted his earlier confession that he had been to the victim's house with his friends that night.

According to the information received, Chun Chun Chaudhary, one of the alleged perpetrators, used to tease Sita prior to her rape and murder. Mr. Tiru Sada had called a meeting in the village and admonished Mr. Chun not to tease Sita. Mr. Chun had said that he would not do so but he had teased Sita again two days before the incident.

After the incident Mr. Tiru Sada’s family was forced to move away, as they no longer felt safe.

AHRC is deeply concerned about the rape and murder of Sita Sada. Even though it happened in May, no proper investigation has yet been undertaken. Furthermore, the victim’s family was forced to move from their residence for their safety. AHRC urges the relevant authorities to conduct an immediate investigation into this case. Proper compensation to the victim’s family should be provided as well as protection.

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please send a letter, fax or email to the addresses below and express your concern about this serious case.

Sample letter:

Dear _________,

RE: NEPAL: A 14-year old Dalit girl raped and murdered by upper caste men

I am shocked to hear that Sita Sada, a 14-year old Dalit girl, was raped and killed by upper caste men on 17 May 2004. According to the information received, while Sita was sleeping at night, more than 10 men came and dragged her out of the house. Two days later, a farmer discovered Sita’s naked dead body with her teeth knocked out near the riverside far from her home. The postmortem report by the District Hospital in Inaruwa said that she was raped and killed by suffocation.

Even though the suspects were arrested, they were released on the same day due to the protest of their family and relatives, all belonging to the upper class. Although one of them was held in the District Police custody for two months, he was released after one girl gave false testimony. Since then, however, no proper inquiries into the case have been conducted and Sita’s family was forced to move to another place for their safety.

I urge you to conduct an immediate impartial investigation into this case and prosecute the responsible perpetrators. Adequate compensation and protection should also be provided to the victim’s family.

Sincerely yours,

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Send a letter to:

1. Hon. Surya Bahadur Thapa
Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
Singha Durbar, Kathmandu
NEPAL
Tel: +977 1 228555 or 227955
Fax: +977 1 4 227 765 / +977 1 227286
Email: hmg@es.wlink.com.np 

2. Shyam Bhakta Thapa
Inspector General of Police - IGP
Police Head Quarter
Maharajganj, Kathmandu
Ph. +977-14 412 432, 14 412 737 (direct) Office
+977-14 414 985 Residence
Fax. +977- 14 415 593

3. Shyam Bahadur Khadka
Superintendent of Police (SP)
District Police Office
Sunsari
NEPAL
Tel. +(977) 25 560 728
Fax: +(977) 25 560 211

4. Mr. Nain Bahadur Khatri
Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission
Pulchowck, Lalitpur
NEPAL
Tel: +977 1 5 547 974 or 525 659 or 547 975
Fax: +9771 5 547 973
Email: nhrc@ntc.net.np

5. Ms. Yakin Ertk
Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women
OHCHR-UNOG
8-14 Avenue de la Paix
1211 Geneva 10,
SWITZERLAND
Fax: +41 22 917 9022 / 917 9011

6. Mr. John Bevan
Officer in Human Rights Section
C/o UNDP, UN House,
P.O. Box: 107
Pulchowk, Kathmandu
NEPAL
Tel: +977 1 5 524 366 / 5 523 200
Fax: +977 1 5 523 991 / 5 523 986
Email: john.bevan@undp.org

Thank you.

Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)

Document Type :
Urgent Appeal Case
Document ID :
UA-129-2004
Countries :
Issues :
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Extended Introduction: Urgent Appeals, theory and practice

A need for dialogue

Many people across Asia are frustrated by the widespread lack of respect for human rights in their countries.  Some may be unhappy about the limitations on the freedom of expression or restrictions on privacy, while some are affected by police brutality and military killings.  Many others are frustrated with the absence of rights on labour issues, the environment, gender and the like. 

Yet the expression of this frustration tends to stay firmly in the private sphere.  People complain among friends and family and within their social circles, but often on a low profile basis. This kind of public discourse is not usually an effective measure of the situation in a country because it is so hard to monitor. 

Though the media may cover the issues in a broad manner they rarely broadcast the private fears and anxieties of the average person.  And along with censorship – a common blight in Asia – there is also often a conscious attempt in the media to reflect a positive or at least sober mood at home, where expressions of domestic malcontent are discouraged as unfashionably unpatriotic. Talking about issues like torture is rarely encouraged in the public realm.

There may also be unwritten, possibly unconscious social taboos that stop the public reflection of private grievances.  Where authoritarian control is tight, sophisticated strategies are put into play by equally sophisticated media practices to keep complaints out of the public space, sometimes very subtly.  In other places an inner consensus is influenced by the privileged section of a society, which can control social expression of those less fortunate.  Moral and ethical qualms can also be an obstacle.

In this way, causes for complaint go unaddressed, un-discussed and unresolved and oppression in its many forms, self perpetuates.  For any action to arise out of private frustration, people need ways to get these issues into the public sphere.

Changing society

In the past bridging this gap was a formidable task; it relied on channels of public expression that required money and were therefore controlled by investors.  Printing presses were expensive, which blocked the gate to expression to anyone without money.  Except in times of revolution the media in Asia has tended to serve the well-off and sideline or misrepresent the poor.

Still, thanks to the IT revolution it is now possible to communicate with large audiences at little cost.  In this situation there is a real avenue for taking issues from private to public, regardless of the class or caste of the individual.

Practical action

The AHRC Urgent Appeals system was created to give a voice to those affected by human rights violations, and by doing so, to create a network of support and open avenues for action.  If X’s freedom of expression is denied, if Y is tortured by someone in power or if Z finds his or her labour rights abused, the incident can be swiftly and effectively broadcast and dealt with. The resulting solidarity can lead to action, resolution and change. And as more people understand their rights and follow suit, as the human rights consciousness grows, change happens faster. The Internet has become one of the human rights community’s most powerful tools.   

At the core of the Urgent Appeals Program is the recording of human rights violations at a grass roots level with objectivity, sympathy and competence. Our information is firstly gathered on the ground, close to the victim of the violation, and is then broadcast by a team of advocates, who can apply decades of experience in the field and a working knowledge of the international human rights arena. The flow of information – due to domestic restrictions – often goes from the source and out to the international community via our program, which then builds a pressure for action that steadily makes its way back to the source through his or her own government.   However these cases in bulk create a narrative – and this is most important aspect of our program. As noted by Sri Lankan human rights lawyer and director of the Asian Human Rights Commission, Basil Fernando:

"The urgent appeal introduces narrative as the driving force for social change. This idea was well expressed in the film Amistad, regarding the issue of slavery. The old man in the film, former president and lawyer, states that to resolve this historical problem it is very essential to know the narrative of the people. It was on this basis that a court case is conducted later. The AHRC establishes the narrative of human rights violations through the urgent appeals. If the narrative is right, the organisation will be doing all right."

Patterns start to emerge as violations are documented across the continent, allowing us to take a more authoritative, systemic response, and to pinpoint the systems within each country that are breaking down. This way we are able to discover and explain why and how violations take place, and how they can most effectively be addressed. On this path, larger audiences have opened up to us and become involved: international NGOs and think tanks, national human rights commissions and United Nations bodies.  The program and its coordinators have become a well-used tool for the international media and for human rights education programs. All this helps pave the way for radical reforms to improve, protect and to promote human rights in the region.