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Rapes during Jat agitation? Police wait for victims to complain

Both Singh and the owner of an adjoining dhaba, Jai Bhagwan stay short of admitting that the rapes occurred. They tell dna that though they saw men and women in distress, there was nothing that suggested rape.

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Tattered clothes of women were spotted at Murthal, Haryana
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It's Thursday, three days have passed since a few women were reportedly raped during the Jat reservation stir blockade here on the National Highway (NH) 1.

At dusk, at the popular Amrik Sukhdev Dhaba, located about 60 kilometres from New Delhi, things are back to usual business and close to a 100 visitors' cars are parked outside, but for a conspicuous change in sight. A group of elderly men from the nearby Kurad and Hassanpur village sit huddled outside. Owner Amrik Singh says it is these men who fended off the mob and prevented damage to the restaurant in the wee hours of February 22, the same mob that reportedly raped women.

More than a 100 people caught in the Jat reservation stir blockade took shelter inside the restaurant for two days and initial reports suggest, some of them included the victims of sexual violence.

Following sustained pressures from the media, women organisations and cognisance by the Punjab and Haryana high court, on Friday, the Haryana government set up a committee of three women officers, two deputy superintendents of police and one of the deputy inspector general rank besides a helpline number–18001802057, for anyone with the rape complaint or leads into the incident. The police, initially, was totally ruling out the possibility of rape.

A mob attacked a convoy of cars and other vehicles at this stretch of the NH-1 when they were cautiously moving towards Delhi from Panipat after taking refuge for two days at hotels, Gurudwaras, schools and colleges during the peak of the Jat stir.

Even as 28 vehicles, including 21 private cars were set ablaze, the occupants ran helter skelter and took refuge at where ever they could, including at a few dhabas nearby. At the spot, are tattered women clothes.

Both Singh and the owner of an adjoining dhaba, Jai Bhagwan stay short of admitting that the rapes occurred. They tell dna that though they saw men and women in distress, there was nothing that suggested rape.

In the backyard of Bhagwan's Dhaba, initial reports said four women took shelter during the violence behind a water tank. He, however, says that it were not just women but the male members of their families too who came to escape the violence.

Both of them maintained the same versions as given to dna before a National Commission for Women (NCW) delegation that visited the spot.

A delegation of All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), the women wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) too visited Murthal on Thursday for fact finding. In a statement it says, "that once the police intervened in the situation they discouraged the victims of sexual assault and their families from lodging formal complaints. The police argued that there was no chance of identifying and intercepting the culprits in the current situation and lodging of complaints will only result in bringing further trauma and dishonour to their families."

AIDWA general secretary, Jagmati Sangwan tells dna that "All the circumstantial evidence suggest women were violated. Now, it's a question of how safe and encouraged do the victims and their families feel that they would come out and report it".

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