Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Nearly 350 women tortured, 11 raped in Nandigram on March 14: Report


Kolkata, Sept. 18 (PTI): Six months after the Nandigram violence, an independent forum of NGOs on Monday claimed that 348 women were subjected to various kinds of atrocities, including rape and sexual torture, during the March 14 police firing on villagers that left 14 dead.

"We have found that 274 women were physically tortured, 46 had their modesty violated, 17 sexually tortured and 11 raped," former State Land Reforms Secretary, Debabrata Bandopadhyay, said while releasing a preliminary survey report on the Nandigarm incident conducted by 'Sameekshak Samannay,' an open platform of NGOs from various domains.

"Altogether 244 people including 57 women, received injuries from bullets, rubber bullets, fibre rods, batons, rifle butts, tear gas shells and bombs. Four persons, including one woman, still remained missing," he said.

Bandopadhyay claimed the survey revealed that there were at least five non-police associates of the police at Nandigram, and they were also involved in the attack on the villagers.

Stating that documents on the Nandigram incident fell short of giving a true picture of the extent of violence and the "organised atrocities on women," he said the new survey would find out the number of people dead, injured or missing and number of women victims and the nature of violence on them.

The door-to-door survey was conducted during April and May by 47 investigators, including statisticians, in 2,763 households across 13 mouzas in Nandigram. The survey in the remaining 4,095 hosueholds would be taken up later.


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