The CNN-IBN channel has claimed that the National Commission for Women — a statutory rights body — has prepared a report in which it points to women being stripped and people being burnt by Uttar Pradesh policemen during the recent farmers’ agitation.
Claiming to have seen the NCW report prepared after the Commission’s visit eight days ago, the channel said that women interviewed by the body claimed to have seen people being set on fire.
Women were stripped and teased, the channel said.
“10-12 cops tore the clothes of women, paraded them naked,” the channel said, adding that the report also reported that villagers were threatened not to speak about the episode.
The Bhatta Parsaul farmers’ agitation shot into the headlines after Rahul Gandhi claimed that people were burnt and raped in the two villages as policemen tried to get a grip over the ‘agitating farmers.’
Addressing the media yesterday, UP Cabinet Secretary has already categorically denied any such incident in the area and accused rival political groups of supporting armed goons posing as farmers.
The farmers of Bhatta Parsaul are agitating for getting higher compensation for the land they had given to build an expressway after learning that the private developers who bought parts of their land paid to the government several times what they got.
The report, if true, is certain to land like a bomb in national politics. Already the Congress president and her son Rahul Gandhi are having a running battle of words with Mayawati, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh over the alleged violations of human rights.
Cynics see the signs of the hotting up of campaigning for next year’s UP assembly elections in the controversy. Congress is trying to make an identity for itself, after having lost most of its political standing in the state over the last 15 years.
