A Brief History
On September 29, 2011, a special court convened in India convicted a staggering 269 police and government officials of complicity in an atrocity called the “Vachathi case,” including 17 of those convictions for rape.
Digging Deeper
On June 20, 1992, almost 2 decades before the eventual convictions a large group of officials, including 108 police officera, 155 forestry agents and 6 revenue agents conducted a raid on Vachathi village, a community suspected of smuggling sandalwood.
The so called “search team” ransacked private property, looted what they could, destroyed property and livestock, and assaulted scores of villagers, including the rape of 18 women and girls. By the time the long belated convictions finally came down, 54 of the accused had already died, the surviving convicts being sentenced to jail.
Can you think of a non-wartime incident of police misconduct that can top this outrage?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Joshi, G.P. Policing In India: Some Unpleasant Essays. Atlantic Publishers, 2013.
Thomas, K.V. Human Rights, Terrorism and Policing in India. Indian Social Institute, 1999.
The featured image in this article, a map by Coppercholride of Dharmapuri district, Tamil Nadu, India, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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