The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Acquittal, gallows, life term
Priyadarshini murder case has seen it all

THE forlorn 14-year search for justice by the family of Priyadarshini Mattoo, the 23-year-old law student who was raped, strangled with an electric wire and brutally murdered by battering her face with a motor cycle helmet in January 1996, has been a harrowing experience. The trial court acquitted Santosh Singh, a lawyer and son of a senior police officer, in 1999 with the Judge stressing that a malnourished investigation by the Delhi Police meant that though he knew Santosh Singh “is the man who committed the crime”, he was forced to acquit him. In October 2006, the Delhi High Court reversed the order and held that “for a murder so grotesque and brutal, the convict deserves nothing less than the death penalty”. It also took the police to task, stating that the rule of law “is not meant for those who enforce the law nor for their near relatives”. Both courts had agreed that the police was reluctant to follow up on Priyadarshini’s complaints against Singh because his father was a senior police officer (Santosh studied law in the same college as Priyadarshini).

Four years later, the Supreme Court has commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment, observing that “to our minds, the balance sheet is slightly in favour of the appellant and, therefore, we believe the ends of justice will be met if his death sentence is commuted to life”.

Considering that many of those on life sentence in India roam about on parole, her father Chaman Lal Mattoo has felt dismayed by the verdict: “The Supreme Court should make sure that this reduction is not misused as a trend and a trick in the sense that the culprit should roam here and there while in jail”. His frustration is shared by Neelam Katara, mother of another murder victim Nitish Katara, who too feels that life sentence in India means freedom for culprits. “I have got two prisoners out there on life sentence who are out on parole, making my life difficult,” she laments. This lacuna in the criminal justice system must be addressed suitably.

Musharraf’s confession
India’s stand on terror justified

THOSE in the world who doubted Pakistan’s use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy should revise their opinion. Former military ruler of Pakistan Gen Pervez Musharraf (retd) has now admitted that militant groups “were indeed formed” to cause death and destruction in India’s Jammu and Kashmir. In an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, the retired Pakistan Army chief, who captured power in 1999 in a bloodless military coup, shamelessly defends this atrocious act of his country. His opinion is that Pakistan considered it necessary to create and patronise terrorist outfits to kill and maim people in India because this was how the world community could be made to focus on the Kashmir question. But indirectly he has also justified the argument of India that terrorism has emerged as a major threat to peace in South Asia and the rest of the world because of the dangerous policy of Pakistan.

Over the years Pakistan has emerged as the epicentre of terrorism. Blinded by their hatred for India, Pakistani rulers failed to realise that terrorism was a like two-edged weapon. The country that gave birth to this Frankenstein could not be safe from it. If today Pakistan’s survival as a nation-state is in jeopardy because of the activities of militant groups like the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the country’s use of terrorism for its geopolitical objectives is to blame.

Pakistan is still not as forthcoming about fighting terrorism as it pretends before the world community. It has officially banned the terrorist groups working against India, but those behind such outfits are not treated as the most dangerous criminals. They are considered as assets and may be used again once the international attention shifts from the Af-Pak region. The infrastructure of these groups has not been completely dismantled. That is why the US has warned that in case there is another 9/11-type attack originating from Pakistan, Washington will not hesitate in destroying the 150 terror camps which continue to exist. The question that can be asked is: why should the world wait for another major terrorist strike to finish off the training camps of these killing outfits?

Thought for the Day

It has been well said that “the arch-flatterer with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence is a man’s self”.

— Francis Bacon

ARTICLE

Efforts for peace in the valley
Options before Kashmir leaders
by Balraj Puri

A vital question that the separatist leaders in Jammu and Kashmir must decide is whether they want “azadi” or any other status outside India for the whole state or for the Kashmiri-speaking community in the valley. In either case, they must consider its implications. In the former case (whole state) they must also decide the question of inter-regional relations and constitutional and institutional arrangements to satisfy the urges of ethnic diversities in the new arrangement.

This question was posed to Syed Ali Shah Geelani when he was the president of the united Hurriyat Conference. He assured this writer that “we will treat Jammu and Ladakh much better than the present state government.” It was pointed out to him that there were two pre-requisites of this offer. One, he will remain supreme in the new set-up. Two, he would be immortal. He then asked, “Do you want to constitutionalise the system?” I replied in the affirmative. Needless to say, it was never done.

On another occasion, Hurriyat leaders were asked to organise an all-party conference on the internal constitutional set-up of the state irrespective of their views on its external status. They replied, “You are always welcome to discuss the matter with us.” I insisted on a formal decision of all the parties involved. After some time, Yasin Malik came to Jammu and asked me to revive my proposal. I replied, “When I had made the proposal, the Hurriyat was united. I could invite it as the sole representative of the Kashmir region. Now it was divided. Moreover, an elected government was in power. Whatever be its following, it cannot be ignored. If you are willing to sit with the other Hurriyat leaders and the National Conference, I could still convene an all-party conference.” Obviously, Yasin was not willing.

Here it may be useful to invite the attention of the separatist leaders to the State People’s Convention convened by Sheikh Abdullah in 1968 as the leader of the Plebiscite Front, the most popular secessionist group of the time. It was also attended, inter alia, by Mirwaiz Farooq, father of Mirwaiz Umar, and representatives of the Jamat-e-Islami of which Geelani was a member, besides Mr G.M. Karra’s pro-Pakistan People’s Conference. It unanimously accepted my draft on the internal constitutional set-up of the state irrespective of its status. It provided for regional autonomy and devolution of powers at the district, block and panchayat levels.

Will Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Geelani, the leaders of the rival Hurriyats, accept this proposal to which Mirwaiz Farooq and the Jamat-e-Islami were committed? The other alternative is to divide the state and be prepared for its implications. Sajjad Lone, in his manifesto, “Achievable Nationhood”, has offered to the Hindu areas of Jammu and the Buddhists of Ladakh the option to opt out of the state. The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council has endorsed the idea and demanded the Union Territory status for Ladakh.

Balraj Madhok, Dr Karan Singh and Syed Shahabuddin had supported the idea of division of the state some time back at one stage or the other. New York-based Farooq Kathwari, the richest and most influential Kashmiri, and Salig Harrison, a leading American expert on the Indian subcontinent, had also advocated the idea. I had discussed the implications of the idea with most of them who modified their stand. Farooq Kathwari had in a long telephonic talk told me that his Kashmir Study Group no longer supported the idea of division of the state and the best first step should be regional autonomy.

At one stage the BJP supported the idea of division of the state. A conference of former Prime Ministers and other leading personalities of the country was organised and they opposed the idea. I conveyed the decision to the then Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, and had also detailed discussions with the then Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani.

When on the eve of General Musharraf’s first visit to India, some voices in the BJP parivar were raised in favour of division of the state, I told Advani that the idea had been welcomed by Pakistan and asked him why his party had become so generous to Islamabad. He replied that he was convinced after the discussion with me that the remedy of the division of the state was worse than the disease, but the RSS was not agreeing.

Now again RSS ideologue Vaidya has recommended that the Kashmir region be granted pre-1953 autonomy, but Jammu and Ladakh should be fully merged with the Indian Union. This is what Jana Sangh founder Dr Shyama Prasad Mukerjee had once thought of and entered into prolonged correspondence with Pandit Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah. The Sheikh quoted him as having said, “If the people of the Kashmir valley think otherwise, there can be special provision for that zone. We would readily agree to treat the valley with Sheikh Abdullah as its head in any special manner for such time as he would like but Jammu and Ladakh must he fully integrated with India.”

In his reply to Dr Mukerjee through his letter dated February 4, 1953, the Sheikh wrote: “You are perhaps not unaware that attempts are being made to force a decision by disrupting the unity of the state. Once the ranks of the state people are divided, any solution can be foisted on them.” Eventually, Dr Mukerjee accepted the Delhi Agreement in toto.

A crucial question in the case of division of the state would be the future of the Muslim-majority districts of Jammu and the Muslim-majority district of Kargil in the Ladakh region. As politics in Jammu is no more secular in character, it is doubtful if the Muslim-majority areas will like to change their status from that belonging to a Muslim-majority state to a Hindu-majority one. Similarly, the movement for the Union Territory status in Ladakh is led by the BJP and is confined to Leh. Kargil is unlikely to join it, though its Muslim majority is not at all happy with what is considered a Kashmiri-dominated state. Already, by dividing Ladakh into a Buddhist-majority Leh and Muslim-majority Kargil, and by denying a regional status in the constitution of the state, which recognises only the Jammu and Kashmir regions, the seeds of religious division of Ladakh have been sown.

If the state is divided on religious lines, no Muslim would be secure in Hindu-majority Jammu, and no Hindu would be secure in the Muslim-majority part of the region and the valley. Sizeable minorities live at present in both parts. Similar insecurities will be created in Leh and Kargil. Any issue can ignite communal clashes anywhere, which can lead to communal riots with repercussions in the rest of India. The secular basis of the country would be thereby undermined.

The worst sufferer would in that case be the Kashmir region and its thousands of years old great civilization. The present unitary and centralised system is a perennial source of tension which seeks an anti-India outlet in Kashmir. In Jammu, it encourages ultra-nationalist and even communal sentiments. Both pro-and-anti-India parties should, therefore, first work for a federal and decentralised system so that a harmonious personality of the state can be built more or less in accordance with the People’s Convention draft on an internal constitution. Any dialogue about a permanent status of the state will then become much easier.

The writer is Director, Institute of Jammu and Kashmir Affairs, Jammu.

MIDDLE

Retirement blues
by Harbans Singh Virdi

Retirement, I thought, would be relaxing, but it was not so. Retirement blues hit me hard in the very first few days of my bidding good-bye to office work. I had thought retirement would be soothing, like the last month of my retirement, when almost every colleague had shown me respect and courtesy, normally reserved for “karsevawale babas”. Now I realise that retirement, like liquor, has different effect on different people.

A strong man after getting drunk, starts crying in self-pity whereas a weak man, after drinking spirit, roars like a lion. Similarly, some colleagues who had been hostile to me throughout were suddenly kindness personified while another colleague, who had been a friend throughout, turned nasty towards the end.

But this was nothing compared to what happened a few days after I quit work. The day I announced my retirement to my maid, she cried out in disbelief: ‘Sir, would you stop paying me now? I hope you don’t cut my salary to half.’ She stopped sobbing only after I assured her that her monthly wages will remain intact though my pay and perks were gone.

But when I broke the news of my retirement to my gardener, his reaction was most sympathetic. “Sir, don’t worry, I always stand by a man in adversity, he said. “To tide over your fiscal crunch, I will charge only Rs 100 a month, instead of Rs 150.” I was overwhelmed by his generosity. Though I protested against his voluntary cut, he pacified me by saying that he had been helping retired men all his life.

A few days later, I was standing in a queue for paying my electricity bill, when I remembered that I had become a ‘senior citizen’. But when I shifted to the ‘senior citizen’ line, there were cries of ‘wapas aao, wapas aao’ from many in the queue. “Look at him, first standing in our queue he was ogling at young women here. Now to pay early, he has joined the senior citizen line. Does he look old? He is dressed as if he were Dev Anand,” said a man.

When I showed my identity card to prove my age, the man replied it could be a fake card. Another man suspected me like the fake press adviser to the Prime Minister, who befooled the Mohali police recently. The noise subsided only when I returned to my old queue amidst curious looks.

Retirement certainly has its disadvantages.

OPED — WOMEN

Female criminality and male perception
What drives women, traditionally perceived as nurturers and care-givers, to crime? Many factors are attributed to feminine criminality, but only proper research can lead to a gender-sensitive approach in legislation, adjudication and reform
Sarvesh Kaushal

CRIME is defined by legal and social institutions and except in case of typical sexual offences, does not essentially hinge on biology and gender. The underlying idea of a gender-based analysis is to rip apart skewed perceptions and gender bias of the dominant lawmakers, enforcement agencies, adjudicators and reformers. Men may have their own bias, and feminists may oscillate to the other extreme, but the real essence of a gender approach is to go behind the terse letter of the law and analyse how genetic, environmental, economic, personality and other issues fuel criminality and delinquency in different genders.

Feminist criminology has of late hyped the subject of women and crime aside from a purely male outlook and primarily masculine terrain. Sexism advertently or sub-consciously colours the process of crime prevention, punishment and imprisonment of women.

Feminists rightly allege that many police personnel, judges and reformatory officials nurture a wholly misconceived notion that only males are expected to indulge in crime, and women should be austere, compliant and virtuous daughters, wives and mothers. Men tend to regard women as vulnerable and thus insecure. There has been a plea that women in crime should not be considered mad . A criminal is a criminal, and should be treated as bad, and dealt with accordingly.

Those rightly emphasising upon gender equality emphasise that crime should not be treated as a monopoly domain of males. A study of history reveals that women have the potential and have committed as horrific crimes as male criminals, such as murder, treason, blasphemy and drug peddling, etc. Women have even volunteered as deadly human bombs. As per war chronicles, 60 women stood trial before the War Crimes Tribunals between 1945 and 1949. Of these 21 were found guilty and were executed.

However, men still tend to traditionally expect women to be involved in less violent crimes as prostitution, shoplifting etc. When women go beyond that, they are irrationally described as masculine, or an aberration.

There has been an intense debate whether criminal women show masculine biological and psychological traits. Criminologists suggest that they have atavistic throwbacks into their relatively primitive state triggering intense criminality. They are more adaptive when faced with a hostile environment and turn to prostitution as an alternative to intensely violent crime.

Some suggest that a desire for recognition urges females to get involved in illegal activities. However, since most of the feminine crime is actuated by economic factors or a backlash to violent aggression they suffer, it is incorrect to attribute the natural desire for recognition as the main trigger for female criminality. Female criminality rejects inherent female biological passivity and endeavours to be like men.

Women have fewer opportunities to be involved in organised and corporate crime. Researchers have concluded that the pattern of women's crimes is broadly similar to that of the men. The child bearing and rearing role leaves women with lesser time to stray into the world of crime. When women commit violent crimes which are purely looked at by men according to their perception of femininity, women receive unduly harsh punishments. It has now been realised that with the gender divide crumbling in a liberal social scenario, women have opportunities to commit crime at the workplace such a fraud and other white-collar economic offences.

Feminists blame the existence of a misplaced masculinity in a female for such an orientation. They emphasise that women normally possess a larger deep limbic system and are more in touch with their feelings and much less insensitive than men. However, it is a moot question whether sensitivity, or hyper-sensitivity, in certain cases could lead to exaggerated feelings of hatred, vengeance, jealousy etc. which degenerate into criminality.

Environmental influences, social milieu and cultural traditions influence criminality. The modern-day breed of intoxicated young ladies may cause the same degree of havoc as male drunken hooligans. Drugs and drinks open the gateway to crime for women as much as they do for men. Mental problems, childhood abuse and drug addictions combine to surely convert women as violent female criminals.

Researchers have found that more than one-third women convicted of sex offences had a history of psychiatric problems. Others may fall into crime for economic reasons, exploitative social milieu or as a reaction to physical or psychological oppression. However, in case of male sexual offenders indulging in rape, non-consensual sex, sexual abuse and sexual molestation, the trigger exists elsewhere and their criminal instincts are not as much attributable to psychiatric problems as in the case of women.

Genes and criminality of an individual go together. Research based on family and adoption studies as well as laboratory experiments has confirmed this. However, genes alone may not be enough to push a female, or for that matter a male, criminal to crime. Genetic predisposition combined with conducive environment is likely to trigger criminality.

Research points out that neuro-chemicals like monoamine oxidase, epinephrine and dopamine influence criminality. This strengthens the argument that genes do have a role to play. However, gender based differentiation of their impact on females in particular is not very clear.

Similarly, research is categorical in establishing that personality traits and disorders seen in children such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, oppositional defiance disorder, impulsivity and aggression determine later adult anti-social behaviour.

According to another research, sociopath females, as in the case of males, lacking in moral development and not feeling socially responsible for their actions are the outcome of the individual's personality, physiotype and genotype. This shift is strengthened by social discrimination.

Unless there is an intensive research on what drives women, as different from men, to crime in different social contexts, there can be no meaningful gender approach to legislation, adjudication and reform, which has huge undefined grey areas susceptible to the gender bias Grey areas of perceptional discretion granted to the key male navigators of criminal justice system tend to make it unfair to the females.

The writer, a senior IAS officer, is the Member Secretary, Punjab State Women Commission

Crime and women
Forced by circumstances as well as the compulsion to make quick money, many women in Punjab are getting involved in drug peddling
Chitleen K Sethi

LAST month the Punjab police in Sangrur arrested a 36-year-old woman with 25 kg of opium. This was not the first time that the accused Gurjinder Kaur (name changed) had been caught for an offence. Married to a drug addict, Gurjiinder left her home more than a decade ago but got involved with a small time drug peddler who introduced her to the world of crime. In 10 years, she tried it all-fake currency, bank robbery and finally drug peddling.

As she remorselessly recalled the ups and downs of her life before the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA), Punjab staff in Sangrur, the only fact that brought tears to her eyes was that in some way she was responsible for her young son taking to drugs.

Gurjinder is one of the over 400 women in Punjab who have been booked in the past one and a half years for smuggling and peddling drugs. In 2009, out of a total of 3,430 cases related to drug smuggling, 261 were registered against women and in another 40 cases, women were the co-accused. Till June 2010, out of the 1793 cases registered, 153 were against women and in 23 women were the co-accused.

The figures are shocking as traditionally women stay away from drugs and alcohol. But obviously the story that is emerging is quite different.

Women from the lower middle classes and rural areas are increasingly taking to petty crimes and peddling drugs is one of the "easier" options.

"Since women are not expected to indulge in crimes related to drugs they are not the natural suspects for the police and manage to carry on with this for years before they are finally caught," says Bhagwant Singh, in-charge, CIA Sangrur.

"Making a woman indulge in crimes like drug trafficking is also most difficult. In fact, a woman will not get into such a crime till she has no other option and she has no other way to earn a livelihood," he adds.

While this might be true of many cases that have come to the Punjab police in the past few years, there are a large number of women in the state belonging to a notorious tribe who traffic drugs with as much ease as they prepare spurious liquor or rob or pick pocket.

These women along with their families live in Mansa, Sangrur, Nawanshahr and Jalandhar and this is also probably the reason the highest numbers of cases against women for smuggling drugs have been registered in these districts. Crime is the main source of income for this tribe. "In Avnkha in Pathankot, these women along with their children are seen peddling pouches of powdered drugs, capsules, spurious liquor outside the railway station and bus stand," said Amit (name changed) a 25-year-old drug-addict undergoing treatment at the Red Cross drug de-addiction centre in Gurdaspur.

Crime is an easy way to earn a quick buck and other than the fear of being caught not much in terms of morality or a defined sense of right and wrong can be expected of those who have to choose between abject poverty and a wrongdoing.

But what goes beyond all economic compulsions or traditional habits is the emergence of a set of women who are indulging in such crimes for quick money wilfully. A lady municipal councillor of Batala in Gurdaspur is the alleged kingpin of a network of peddlers who supply pharmaceutical drugs in the form of capsules and injections to young residents of the area.

"Her husband, her son-in-law and some other relatives living in the Gandhi camp are doing this work. Capsules and injectibles are openly available in at least 35 houses in the area. The police knows about the whole business but they choose to look the other way," relates Swaraj (name changed) a 22- year-old drug addict who lives in Gandhi camp and lost his elder brother to drugs.

The racket is well oiled and runs systematically. "Ten to 15 persons are on duty in the streets of the camp. They patrol the area constantly on motorcycles and in case of a raid inform those inside their houses who are doing business. The stock of injections and capsules is hidden within minutes. The lady councillor's house is the centre of all activity. She controls the whole business in the Gandhi camp," adds Swaraj.

This is not all. In the same camp drug addicts make a beeline for the house of another woman who sells liquor and capsules. "Every evening she sits outside her house with a bucket full of liquor and a bag with capsules in it. Young children, some of them school going. are among her customers," says Swaraj.

Other drug addicts give details of a gang of women in Amritsar running a flourishing drug trading racket. "The operation is carried through mobile phones. The customer is asked to meet the woman at a particular place and drugs are handed over. The phone numbers are passed on only through known customers," said another addict at the centre.

The emergence of women in crime, led not merely by economic compulsions but as a source of easy money is a matter of serious concern. A woman, despite her changing role in modern times, is considered to be the underlying strength of a civilization's social and moral fabric. This responsibility she shoulders by virtue of being a mother and the stabilising factor in the smallest unit of a society — the family. Thus, at all levels of economic strata, rising crime among women can prove to be a far more dangerous trend than crime among men.

(The writer is Principal Correspondent, The Tribune, Chandigarh. The article is in part-fulfillment of her fellowship project instituted by the National Foundation for India, New Delhi)