Once again PUDR wants to highlight the impunity enjoyed by the Armed Forces in the country. On 16th January 2015 the Jammu and Kashmir High Court passed an order in the Kunan Pashpora case which goes on to highlight that in this country, it is not easy to prosecute or hold the Armed Forces accountable for any criminal acts perpetrated by them.

पी.यू.डी.आर. एक बार फिर इस देश में सैन्य बलों को मिली कानूनी दण्डमुक्ति के मुद्दे को चिन्हित करना चाहता है | 16 जनवरी 2015 को कुनन पश्पोरा बलात्कार मामले में जम्मू कश्मीर उच्च न्यायलय ने एक ऐसा निर्देश जारी किया जो इस बात की तरफ इशारा करता है की इस देश में सैन्य बलों पर उनके द्वारा कृत अपराधों के लिए किसी भी प्रकार की कार्यवाही चलाना कोई आसान बात नहीं है |

 ‘Love Jihad’ is a name given to a kind of movement whereby women from non-Muslim communities are allegedly ‘lured’ into marrying the Muslim men as a way of furthering conversion to Islam. The issue of ‘Love Jihaad’ dates back to 2009 when in Kerala a case was reported. Though the Kerala government denied any organized occurrence of such acts, the Hindu and Christian religious groups took it as a threat. Last year, it was imported by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on his agenda.

In the drama of the last four days, the culpability of the Delhi Government and its Law Minister regarding the incident on January 15th 2014, against four Nigerian and Ugandan women in particular stands exposed. Despite public outcry, issues relating to the heightened sense of insecurity amongst Africans in the capital and the removal of the Law Minister, remain largely unaddressed.

उत्तर प्रदेश के मुज़फ्फरनगर, शामली, बाघपत, मेरठ, और सहारनपुर जिलों के ग्रामीण इलाकों में सितम्बर के पहले हफ़्ते में हुए दंगों के बाद से हज़ारों मुसलमान चार महीने से राहत शिविरों में रह रहे हैं | पिछले हफ़्ते से, उत्तर प्रदेश सरकार ने जबरन शिविर बंद करने और लोगों को वहाँ से निकालने की नीति अपना ली है | परिणामस्वरूप दंगा-पीड़ित लोग और भी ज़्यादा परेशान और असुरक्षित हो गए हैं |

Following the unprecedented outbreak of riots in the rural areas of Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Baghpat, Meerut and Saharanpur districts of Uttar Pradesh in the first week of September, tens of thousands of Muslim families have been living in relief camps for the last four months. However, over the past week, the Uttar Pradesh Government has been following a policy of forced closure and eviction of people from such camps. As a consequence, the situation created has resulted in increasing the vulnerabilities and insecurities of persons affected by the riots.

The Peoples’ Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) expresses deep disappointment at the Supreme Court ruling making homosexual relations between consenting adults an offence.  In an affirmation of the rights of Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender (LGBT) persons, the Delhi High Court in a landmark judgment in 2009 had de-criminalized consensual same- sex relations, taking it out of the ambit of ‘unnatural sex’ under section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.

While PUDR understands that Indian society is deeply patriachal, it also believes that the Indian state is primarily responsible for the sorry state of women's rights in this country, and that its actions enforces and sustains the inequality of women in the family, community and society. The fact is that rape is a crime whose basis lies in the operation of power: patriarchal, class, caste, ethnic and religion, and of the state. Thus raping women is used as an instrument to attack communities and to bring them to their knees by the state forces wherever armed forces are deployed.

PUDR mourns the death of the 23-year-old victim of an intensely violent attack and gang rape. However, rather than giving in to anger caused by this distress, we believe that this is a time to reflect on the constitutive contexts that produce an event and figure out how it might never be repeated.

PUDR condemns growing incidents of sexual assault by CRPF personnel on young women in Paikmal block of Bargarh district in Odisha. On July 24, a few CRPF personnel placed in the same block assaulted a 20-year-old woman of the Vindhyabasini colony of Paikmal. The jawans of CRPF accosted her as she was collecting water from the tube-well, and asked her to go with them to the forest nearby for which they offered her money. When she refused, she was dragged. On resisting, she was kicked, marks of which are still on her body.