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Published on Leave a comment on Police surveillance: Arbitrary, unchecked and growing

Automated surveillance technology using drones to spot problematic human behavior in crowds is going to be tested at Technozion and Spring Spree festivals at NIT Warangal, reports the Verge. Lead researcher Amarjot Singh of the University of Cambridge claimed that their system has 94% accuracy at identifying violent poses. However, this accuracy drops with more people in the frame (like there would be at a festival), for example, to 79% with 10 people in the frame.

Police surveillance is growing without much scrutiny in recent years. The laws governing such surveillance have grey areas in which a lot of video surveillance technology currently operates. Reported applications include face recognition technology, behavior recognition, as in the case of the surveillance drones reported in The Verge, facial recognition and linking with police records, including tagging personal information with Aadhaar and sharing it across states.

An increasing number of cities have police using various kinds of surveillance databases to get better information on suspects and potential criminals in the city. These databases, where individual policemen can add the information of people to have some disturbing implications. There are several cities using Facial Recognition Softwares to assist policemen keep track of criminals.

Surveillance of everyone, not just criminals or suspects

There are several cities where CCTV camera networks scan everyone on the street and match their faces against a database of suspects and criminals. Here is a partial list:

  • In 2015, Surat became the first city in India to deploy real time surveillance through facial recognition systems when they implemented NEC India's FaceWatch in collaboration with Innovative Telecom & Softwares. The system uses live feeds from a growing network of CCTV cameras and can be used to monitor for crime in real time. It is capable of facial recognition as well as Automatic number plate recognition. Also, "It automatically matches faces against a database of 30,000 criminal mugshots and can alert the police immediately of anyone on a watchlist."By August, Surat had 604 cameras in 114 locations, covering 10% of the city with plans to add another 900 cameras in a year and bring the total to 2,500 in two years.
  • In 2015, Hyderabad police launched vehicle mounted CCTV cameras with a 360 degree view and ability to store footage for 15 days.
  • In 2016, Mumbai got 4,617 CCTV cameras hooked to the RTO control room and backed by 1000 vehicles fitted with GPS in order to coordinate with the control room were made operational with the objective of tackling law and order, fighting and preventing crime, regulating traffic and detecting traffic-related offences. These cameras are also capable of Automatic Number Plate Recognition as well as Facial Recognition. Additional Chief Secretary (Home) K P Bakshi told the Indian Express, "We can search for an individual all over the city. The cameras will identify the face of a wanted criminal. The camera will also pick out faces of persons roaming around continuously in one place. The nearest police van will then be alerted about the person’s location."
  • In 2016, 160 CCTV cameras were installed in Visakhapatanam as a part of a hi-tech surveillance network.
  • In 2016, in Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh, NEC's Facial Recognition System was used to identify suspects and criminals at the Krishna Pushkaram religious event which sees around 50 million pilgrims attending to take a holy bath in the Krishna river.
  • In 2017, Jaipur police trialed a facial recognition system with cameras installed outside the Ganesh temple at Modi Doongri and controlled from the command and control centre called "Abhay". The FRS would scan the people before it and match them against a database of serial offenders and suspects.
  • In 2018, Cameras with Facial Recognition Technology are expected to be in use in local trains on the Central line in Mumbai, by the end of the year 2018, at a total cost of 276 crore. The cameras "will store facial details of commuters (for 10 days). The cameras with facial recognition software would help trace past movements of any offender on a local train and arrest the person when he travels next." A total of 11,160 cameras will be procured - 76 cameras for each rake, with at least 6 cameras in each coach of the rake.
  • In 2018, Hyderabad city police are matching the faces of everyone on the city's streets against a database of one lakh criminas, from the control room at the Facial Recognition Analytics unit at the Commissioner’s office at Basheerbagh. IT Cell incharge, K. Sreenath Reddy said that the local police are alerted only when the resemblance is more than 70 per cent.
  • Thiruvananthapuram police are using 233 cameras in their surveillance network of the city.
  • Paradip in Odisha is to get a CCTV surveillance camera network within a month.
  • Retired ACP Dhoble (of the hockey stick wielding moral police fame) is now in the process of getting a facial recognition software for the city and believes it needs to be created with the "help" of his son Kshitij, who specialized in Artificial Intelligence at Aukland University. An effort that initially began with a goal of tracing missing people has expanded its objective to "tracking criminals" as well. "Meanwhile, they began compiling the information of all 15,847 police stations in India and uploaded it on the site. One aspect of the site is uploading the information of these police and stations. The other is to spot child beggars, labourers and send it to the site."

Police database for use with mobile app -FaceTagr

This is a database of criminal records that can be used with a Facial Recognition Software (FaceTagr) installed on Android mobile phones of beat policemen and inspectors working in the field. When a policeman scans a suspect's face, the mobile app returns data of police cases filed and police station limits for the criminal the face matches with. Databases being expandable, the database has the potential to store the records of criminals across the country.

The application that was originally built by Vijay Gnanadesikan, CEO of Haliscape Business Solutions, to help rescue children by matching records of missing and found children, was first trialled for police use in Chennal

  • In 2017, FACETAGR was adopted by T Nagar police station of Chennai, beginning with a database of 12,000 criminals. An additional 40,000 suspects were added to the app to improve the chances of police identifying faces. The app used by policemen to "scan" suspects. Once a suspect is scanned, the app returns information about them.
  • In 2018, Chennai police will expand the use of FACETAGR to include interstate criminals as well by expanding the data used by the application to other Southern states. Currently the database has information on 67,000 criminals, including information sent by the Pudducherry Crime Records Bureau. It is awaiting data from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala and Karnataka. The application is in use in 10 out of 12 police districts and is installed on the phones of beat constables. 18 inspectors, subinspecotrs and 150 beat police of Washermanpet were the latest to get the app, with "700 criminals in A, A plus, B and C categories".
  • Chittoor adopted the app in December 2017 with data of 10,000 sandalwood smugglers and 3,000 suspected criminals.
  • Pudducherry has also adopted the use of FACETAGR in March 2018

e-Petty

The e-Petty app is being used across Telangana state to book cases in minor crimes under Sections pertaining to IPC, City Police Act, Gaming Act/ COTPA Act 2003, Motor Vehicle Act and Town Nuisance Act. The app can record photographic and video evidence from the crime scene, photographs of suspects and generate an automatic chargesheet based on evidence. The app tracks previous cases of individuals as well and identify repeat violators because the app links profiles online with Aadhaar card numbers.

Hyderabad

Hyderabad is probably the most surveilled city in the country. The Integrated People Information Hub pulls data from dozens of sources to create profiles of individuals that include not just their own comprehensive information, but that of parents as well. It is a data hoarding machine gone rogue, where there appears to be no reason or reasonable suspicion required to put citizens under surveillance. The surveillance includes call records, social media, relatives and friends, utilities and more.

Questions raised

The use of aggregated databases and Artificial Intelligence  in large scale applications is new in India and the laws don't yet have necessary support as well as restrictions on implementation. There is no doubt that information is power and information on suspects and criminals empowers police to do their jobs better. The lack of development of proper laws, policies, protocols and facilities for the police to record and access information in a secure manner has led to the adoption of various technologies in an ad hoc manner with little overisght.

However, largescale use of such applications raise several and serious questions:

  • Is it constitutional to treat every person as a potential criminal? When all the people entering the range of a Facial Recognition enabled camera are scanned and matched against databases of criminals, it amounts to intrusive surveillance. India lacks a data protection law or a law defining the contours of privacy, however the recent robust arguments against surveillance and observations by judges in the Constitutional Challenge to Aadhaar are very clear that Indians do have a right to privacy and surveillance violates this right.
  • Data ownership: FaceTagr is owned by Haliscape Business Solutiosn Pvt Ltd of Chennai. NEC is a global organization. It is unclear who owns or protects the data on these databases and what restrictions exist against its misuse.
  • Data access: Cortica, a foreign AI company has formed a partnership with the Best Group to analyze CCTV footage from public cameras to predict crime. While technologically it may be a challenging goal, a foreign company with considerable ties to foreign intelligence has capabilities and access to individuals on Indian streets. The software is capable of using data from not just video cameras but satellite and drone footage as well and is capable of analyzing human behavior, including differentiating between nature of crowds - routine market corwd or a protest, etc.In the case of Mumbai, a company run by a software professional and a retired police official appears to have  access to information from all police stations in India and are proceeding to build a database! It is unclear how and why a software under development by private individuals has access to nationwide sensitive data.
  • A market of the gullible: The lack of proper evaluation or policies requiring specific standards has left the police of India a ripe target for companies selling surveillance products who may exploit the real need for collecting information or corrupt insiders to gain contracts. Many of the technologies described here have not been subjected to robust testing and have no published research about their quality. Some of the stories describe extensive installations that become defunct or are not of adequate quality to begin with, as in the case of Visakhapatanam, left with 3 working cameras out of 160 within 2 years of installation at massive public expense. Others describe extremely efficient systems, but ones that violate the rights of the citizens they are supposed to serve.This risks spending public funds for purposes and methods that may not be in public interest. There is an urgent need to consult with independent experts and digital rights law researchers and other professionals without conflict of interest to put together guidelines for data collection for surveillance, data destruction when its purpose is served, securing of that data to prevent misuse and policies on who should have access and a transparent process for granting such access.
  • Who is a criminal or suspect: It doesn't take a lot for police to consider someone a suspect and there is little oversight. There is no warrant or independent authority required to initiate surveillance against anyone. Such a database has the capacity to take the local prejudices of police across state lines and cause considerable harassment to individuals in all areas covered by such databases.
  • Utility: While there is obviously a need for police to monitor suspects in order to gather evidence, the legality and utility of randomly spotting them on the street is debatable. What is the utility of someone say.... suspected of having conducted a robbery... being spotted in another state - if it even is the same person?
  • Technological limitations: Such "identification" is inherently probabilistic and can be wrong. A good example would be the Welsh police wrongly identifying over two thousand people as potential criminals when they used Facial Recognition at the 2017 Champions League final in Cardiff in a crowd of 170,000 spectators. This has the potential to create a lot of harassment as well as waste police resources when applied to the far bigger numbers of people on the street in Indian cities.
  • Bypassing consent: A person suspected by the police and asked to come for questioning has rights. They can agree or refuse and the police cannot actually force them to say.... stand in a line up to be identified without any due process. Or they may wish to have a lawyer present when interacting with a policeman as a suspect. However, use of software such as this allows a beat constable to completely arbitrarily scan people who may not even realize that they are actually in a situation with the law where they may need to exert choices to protect their interests.
  • Human rights: As often happens when the state adopts technology, the advantages of the technology have been understood and promoted, but there appears to have been little consideration given to human rights implications of falsely accused individuals, potential for corruption through entering or removing entries on the database for bribes or blackmail, consequences of false positives to innocents and other potential fallout. There needs to be better consultation by the state when adopting such technologies with professionals (other than those providing the technology as a solution) to assess the wider impact beyond the immediate problem the technology aims to solve and mitigate the potential for harm.
  • Ability to maintain technology: Out of 160 cameras installed in Visakhapatanam 2016, 3 cameras were working in 2018. One of them being pointed to the ground, was useless.
  • Aggregated or discrete databases? It is not known whether the databases used to identify criminals through CCTV or the FaceTagr app or e-Petty are linked where they coexist. Aggregation of data across these databases has even more potential for the violation of rights of citizens.
  • Magnifying social prejudices: A simple statistical reality is that positives - whether real or false - will be higher among those who get scanned more. In a country where there is considerable documented evidence of prejudice against religious minorities or underprivileged castes, classes and communities, the use of such a software has the potential to magnify and endorse prejudices that cause their targeting. Take for example, reported cases of slums being raided and all the men in them being asked to identify themselves. The chances of these men being identified - correctly or falsely - will always be higher than say a person living in a gated society, where such raids are unheard of, simply because such faces will get scanned more often than those whose circumstances don't lend easily to such situations.
  • Use of Aadhaar for profiling: the e-Petty app used in Telangana is a clear use of Aadhaar for profiling - something the government has consistently denied in the Supreme Court.
  • Lack of appropriate digital security: Apart from the data being shared across state borders, or being hosted on private servers or foreign companies being given access to it - which are issues of policy to determine what is appropriate and what is not, there are outright failures of digital security, which result in unintended and unauthorized access to the very sensitive data being collected. Researcher Kodali, for example, had pointed out that the Hyderabad police were using a third party portal to record and geotag crime. The portal having very poor security for the purpose it was being used for, had allowed the indexing of crime reports by search engines for years, including the names of rape victims - which is not legal in India.
  • Lack of independent audit or testing: The systems used for both largescale CCTV surveillance as well as scanning individuals using a mobile app do not have information available on their accuracy. The lesser the accuracy, the more such systems will end up wasting police resources on chasing dead ends and causing harassing citizens.
  • A need for legislation: It is undeniable that the police need effective ways to access databases to find information on suspects and criminals on the fly. It is also inevitable that this will involve a certain degree of invasion of privacy in the interests of conducting investigations. However, this cannot simply be left to whatever software developers believe can be done or police wish to adopt. There needs to be a regulatory framework that will identify situations when such use is legitimate and protect citizens from arbitrarily being entered into databases as suspects. There should also be regulation of what information should remain local and what should be disseminated - a local suspected of robbery does not need to be found acorss state borders, but an absconding criminal found in the footage of a murder should be. There is also a need for legislation to remove names from the databases when the people are no longer suspects - for example cases people were suspected in get closed with others charged.

Further reading:

  • Research published by the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, "The Perpetual Line-Up" on the unregulated use of public surveillance by law enforcement and the risks.
  • Technological bias: While MediaNama was not able to find any research about FaceTagr specifically, "Face Recognition Performance: Role of Demographic Information" by the FBI about accuracy of Facial Recognition in various population demographics is an interesting read on the biases caused by how the system is "trained" to recognize faces.
  • Policy Paper on Surveillance in India by the Centre for Internet & Society

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Does the demonetisation of 500 and 1000 rupee notes really benefit India? To what extent? What is the cost to benefit? How do we measure success? And more questions.
Published on 1 Comment on Some questions about this demonetisation thing

Let us for a moment forget the plight of the many small vendors and businessmen who are basically busy sinking while enough people get enough cash in hand at the very limited rates allowed by the government to bother with the non-essentials they are selling. Let us forget about medical emergencies and people dropping dead in front of banks or committing suicide. Let us forget about any problems people face - however huge - and dismiss them as "inconveniences" (I believe that is the euphemism of the hour the government wants us to remember) toward a larger goal. Since the government's talk is all about strengthening India's economy, security, preventing black money, preventing terrorist funding, etc.... let us understand clearly this larger goal we are suffering inconveniences for.

[For the record, what you and I suffer are inconveniences, I have met small vendors by the dozens these last few days and what they suffer is described better as economic devastation, but going with the term given the abundance of people who couldn't care less what people not them suffer.]

Here are some questions.

What is black money?

Ignoring that the supporters of the government are currently bullying anyone questioning the government as a hoarder of black money, let us look at this phrase. It is basically unaccounted money. It is money that is earned or received that the government does not receive tax on. So basically, it is the transaction that determines whether the money is black or not. For example, you purchase something with cash you got as salary that you withdraw from an ATM, get a receipt for it and the seller accounts for it and pays tax on it, your entire journey of the money is "white" - even if you made a cash purchase. You got cash in envelopes from relatives on your wedding, which you didn't declare as an income, but spent it, you spent black money. If the seller still gave you a receipt and paid his dues on it, you spent black money, but it is white on the trader's end. Now here is the question. You withdrew some money from the ATM from your salary and you have some money you got as a gift. Which note in your pocket is white and which one is black? Is it the notes themselves or the amounts based on sources? If you receive an online payment for some fictional item which you never sold, but gave an invoice for... Seems to me, thinking of black money as being like black sheep that you could herd into a corner and take to slaughter is a bit simplistic.

Does size matter? How big is too big?

Seems to me that currency makes sense for exchange. For storing, there are more compact methods. It isn't just a 1000 rupee note that is smaller than a 100 rupee note. You could probably swallow a lakh worth of gold without any health issues or less hideously, you could tuck it into a corner of your wallet and it would be so small, you could flash your wallet to show it was "empty" when it carried a lakh worth of gold. "Storing" black money as currency notes makes little sense. If it is to be used in transactions, the transactions will already be a cover up in place and even if they weren't, the work into tracing them wouldn't be different for old or new notes (unless you really fell for the news of the 2000 rupee note that screams if you use it as black money).

How does "sudden" matter?

While there is a brief logic in the entire population being wary of large quantities of notes and thus less likely to unwittingly launder it for someone, the black money owner has about as much time to launder his money in as you or me. While we may think of minor hacks like withdrawing from different banks to get more than 4000 rupees in 14 days (because really, you like pizza, and that's less than 8 days of pizza assuming you spent on nothing else), big black money holders will likely have way more experience at juggling money as well (not to mention plenty of white money to claim it to be if questioned). Sure, exceptional idiots could have managed to amount vast amounts of currency and be too stupid to evade capture, but really, how many would they be? Why, just last month, this diamond merchant from Surat gifted 400 flats and 1000 cars to his employees. The cars were gifts while the more expensive flats were on EMIs of which the company paid a sum. Now, if the returns he gets on these are over time, he successfully vanished a hell of a lot of money just before this ambush and will likely get it back in tidy white installments as the dust dies down. Of course his money may have been white. Just a hypothetical question. From all accounts, this chap seems to be a serial gifter (not that that is any proof of white money, just saying), but an example of what could be done.

In any case, with clear evidence that BJP officials had advance information, certain economic elite had advance information, etc... pretty much the only people to be caught unawares seem to be the gullible citizens so far. Certainly there seems to be no exceptional news of recoveries, though many raids, and heck even inspection of passengers in trains has been reported. If it is about causing panic, it is quite illogical to think that a person with plenty of money will panic before a person with little due to a strangling of cash flow (which is most of the country). You could drive small businesses to extinction and still have the big black players patiently changing some money at a time along with them right to the end. Or just take some loss and change it at lesser value in the black market the government so obligingly created with its abrupt scare tactics. Or perhaps they already got the gold and changed their roomful of cash into a purseful of gold that they put in a bank locker.

Do we have the capabilities for getting intelligence on big money movements?

Say someone uses an Aadhaar card to change 4000 rupees in a bank branch. For good measure, they take along their wife, maid, driver and driver's girlfriend (or whatever, just hire a few... if you get my drift). Then the next bank branch, then the next bank branch and so on.... The next day, the same bunch more or less returns with PAN cards. Day after that is voter ID day, and so on... till fourteen days are over and they can withdraw from the first again. Or just steal some identities. Heck, International couriers have databases. Would the bank even be able to alert tax authorities about abnormal exchanges? Add to that these people withdraw 20k a week in cash from their account, then return in a few days with the defunct currency and dump in 20k.... and so on. What about say.... hiring the maid's neighbourhood people who are struggling for cash and tell them to take a couple of hundred for every 4k exchanged...

Then of course there are stories of people offering cash loans worth 2 lakh in old currency without interest or at low interest to be returned later. Mostly poor people barely using their bank accounts deposit the 2 lakh cash.... There are student bank accounts that were recently showed to be used to hide money. Anyway, is it really impossible to create a totally fake new Aadhaar and open a Jan Dhan account and dump the money there? Or just borrow accounts wholesale? All you need is a harassed looking housewife type woman. Does anyone think they will get tracked when the Tax people are essentially monitoring the whole freaking country at one go?

How long does it take to create fake currency?

A lot of people are saying that this isn't about black money, but fake currency. Dawood/ISI/other anti-national elements will be disrupted when the fake currency they have loses value. Not sure of that, but the whole freaking country is disrupted because the REAL currency we have has lost value. And it is unclear what prevents fake currency from being legitimized as new notes. It is true that once the switch is over and the existing notes are properly declared dead and can no longer be exchanged (not sure when that will realistically be), the notes counterfeit currency makers make, will have no value. Then the question remains about how permanent this situation is. If someone is in the currency business, I imagine it isn't all that different from the piracy business. New security measures simply mean a race to find a crack, as opposed to a change of occupation and giving up of counterfeiting or piracy. And we haven't even added security measures beyond the notes they already are able to duplicate. They already have distribution channels that we haven't been able to seal (or we wouldn't need to change currency). They have the intent, clearly. So what are the methods we have to prevent the note from being duplicated or at least copied enough to fool people and how long can this protection be reasonably expected to last?

Given the lunacy of "cashless", how long are people expected to survive without money?

Cashless is a lunatic idea. Not even government departments like the post office accept cashless payments. Various offices and forms want cash fees. Large swathes of India have connectivity problem due to remoteness or politics - for example the Kashmiri asking how they were supposed to go cashless when they had no mobile internet for 129 days of the year. When someone like me (and imagine you too) has limited cash, it isn't a very huge issue. You pay your bills, rent with transfers, you make purchases online and have them delivered and so on. At best you suffer for fresh vegetables or have to use app based cabs instead of whatever you can flag down. When someone using cash in daily life runs out of cash, everything comes to a standstill. If they stay in a place with rent 2000 rupees and get a 300 rupee electricity bill, all they have left for the next 14 days is 1700 rupees to cover everything from school fees to vegetables and milk and groceries.

We are agreed that we don't care of the plight of these people who don't matter. But what do we do about the market losses from the drops in sales that go all the way from small sellers to middlemen and distributors and manufacturers and.... um... the tax department at most stages? What do we do about losses from perishables like vegetables or fish? What do we do about security concerns when these people who don't matter bring their "inconveniences" to where our nose begins? And this is not hypothetical. We already have anger at various places. For a leader who was mostly respected, at least publicly, the last 24 hours have seen a disturbing number of abuse videos addressed to Modi. Staunch allies like Shiv Sena and RSS have gone on record criticizing this move.  Economists are muttering about impact on GDP. Stocks have tanked (you realize that just covers five major vote banks for the ruling government?). So yes, anger is definitely the writing on the wall.

Are we certain that enough of this mythical black money will be caught to justify all this? Which brings me to...

Is this yet another bank bailout by forcing people to put money in banks?

There is a lot of talk about black market economy and bringing money under the tax regime, etc. Given that this move worst hits those unlikely to be eligible for tax, one wonders what is achieved. It is possible that those people simply don't matter, so are treated like dirt and I wouldn't be surprised, except elections are coming up in several states. This is the time when citizens are suddenly valuable. It is nothing short of suicidal for BJP to devastate the poor so thoroughly. Which means there is some reason to it. And the only one I can think of is this thing called recapitalization. We need to get money under the tax regime, but it has always been money we didn't have and thus don't depend on. Getting suicidal chasing it makes no sense either. Which leaves the mismanaged banks and their godawful NPAs threatening to sink them. Given that a hell of the biggest NPAs are by names known to be close to te government (and other politicians), it is looking unlikely that banks are going to do it how it is supposed to be done. The government has given money to banks in various ways. The last two are dramatic because they got funded by money belonging to people. The gas subsidies being routed through banks as cash was rather illogically explained that people were better off getting a subsidy refund instead of not paying the money at all in the first place.

This forced a hell of a lot of Indians to create Aadhaar cards and bank accounts that are still used for absolutely nothing else but that - getting what is due to them. This basically lets the banks keep the subsidy money with them for a while till it is withdrawn, and who knows, with any luck, it may be saved or even added to and the deposits will grow. Obviously it doesn't seem to have happened much r at least enough to matter to the blackhoe in the bank finances. So now we have this. The whole country thrown into turmoil by literally forcing people to put most of the cash in the country to banks - just to try and get as many people as possible to put money in banks. No matter what it costs the people in losses, life and everything in between. You could call it a crowd funded bailout of cronies. Some funding was put in banks, other funding was spent as extravagant losses to citizens as a part of implementation. Whether people end up putting even a rupee in the bank or not, by god they will have paid for the government's scheme. I suppose we should pray at this point that the banks figure out how to run themselves or we may find ourselves with our accounts simply "frozen" in the name of "patriotism".

Speaking of NPAs...

The banks are in crisis with NPAs. The larger ones have got a lot of attention. The question is what will this demonetization do to the smaller ones. Or for that matter other loans. There is a lot of talk about the lending capacity of banks improving. Few seem to be thinking that with the kind of business losses smaller businesses are taking, we may not just be destroying them (which we agree doesn't matter), but the attempt to bail out the banks may simply add to their NPAs. Not to mention loss of deposits from businesses that don't have loans but go under anyway or savings from people who suffer losses or loss of income. For example, what do you think is going on with the taxi guy who got the taxi with a loan and for a long time is unlikely to find enough income from it? Will the money created for the banks with what amounts to little more than bullying be worth it or at least be more than it?

Speaking of keeping money in banks...

It is barely a couple of weeks that serious security issues in ATMs resulted in debit cards being misused. Now we have the entire country being pushed to withdrawing cash from ATMs over and over till they have normal amounts of cash with them again. It is unclear what security was added to prevent a repeat before an unprecedented number of cards were sent seeking ATMs. Nor is it clear what actions were taken to recover the losses. No information on ANY online theft being solved and the guilty punished. No assurance that it can't happen again. Already Swaraj Barooah reports on Twitter that he got a phonecall asking for his card information to unlock his card. Such a large movement is hunting grounds for scammers. What preparations do we have? Or are people to simply put their money in banks on blind faith - mostly because they were forced to?

Or for that matter cashless transactions

There is an overall push for people to switch to cashless transactions. Presumably because some bright person somewhere thinks squeezing tax out of every single transaction is more important than people's money or rights. A person who withdraws a thousand rupees to do the week's vegetable shopping and a person who does 10 transactions worth a thousand rupees. With transaction fees on each transaction, the additional 20 or 30 rupees may not matter to the modern Marie Antoinettes, but it sure does to the vast majority of India where 20 rupees is two bundles of spinach or half a kilo of sugar. Why does the citizen have to pay for the government's mistrust in its citizens that makes it want to know the smallest thing they buy? If the government is so desperate for that detail of information, let them make transactions free. Cashless doesn't become cheaper than paper currency, does it, if a thousand rupee note can be printed for 3-4 rupees one time, instead of every time it is used. Cashless is "cheap" for the government only because it is people paying for the unit of exchange and not the government. If currency incurred a cost with every use, even 0.01 rs per use would seem exorbitant. But people are expected to pay many times the cost RBI would pay for a paper note as their duty? Those who can afford it may do it for convenience, but the government cannot force citizens to fund use of national currency - that too with third parties!

Anyway, this is getting too long. These are plenty of questions for now.

Published on Leave a comment on Full text version of Vanzara’s resignation letter

I found that there didn't seem to be text versions of Vanzara's resignation letter, so here is one.

 

D.G. Vanzara, IPS DIG of Police
(under Suspension)
Sabarmati Central Prison
Ahmedabad.

Date- 1-9-2013

To,

Addl. Chief Secretary
Government of Gujarat
Home Department
Sachivalaya
Gandhinagar

Sub: Tendering of resignation from my service with renunciation of all the post-retirement benefits

Sir,

I, undersigned, D.G. Vanzara, DIG of Police (under suspension) an under trial prisoner No. 4826, residing at 1, Sardaryard, Sabarmati Central Prison, Ahmedabad do hereby tender this resignation from my service with renunciation of all the post-retirement benefits on the following grounds:

I am a 1980 batch direct DySP and 1987 batch IPS officer born on the Gujarat cadre. I have been providing my humble services to the people of Gujarat since last 33 years. During the period of years from 2002 to 2006, I initially served as a Deputy Commissioner of Police/Addl. Commissioner of police in the Crime Branch of Ahmedabad city and, later on, I served as a Deputy Inspector General of Police, ATS, Ahmedabad, Gujarat state.

Lastly, while I was serving as a Deputy Inspector General of Police, Border Range, Kutch-Bhuj, I was arrested in ATS Police Station I CR No.- 5/05 (Shohrabuddin encounter case) by the CID Crime of Gujarat on 24-4-2007. Since then I am continuously placed under suspension till date.

I, along with other police officers, was lodged in Sabarmati Central Prison, Ahmedabad, Gujarat wherein I remained till 22-11-2012. Meantime, I was also arrested in Ambaji Police Station I CR No.- 115/2006 (Tulasiram encounter case) by CID Crime of Gujarat on 7-7-2010 for which I had been undergoing the concurrent along with that of Shohrabuddin encounter case in the same jail.

Thereafter, as per the order of Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, the trial of Shohrabuddin encounter case was transferred to Mumbai. Hence, I along with other officers, was shifted to Taloja Central Prison, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, with effect from 23-11-2012. Thus, I along with other officers, have been continuously kept in the jails of Ahmedabad and Taloja since last more than six years.

Meantime, the case of Tulasiram encounter is also merged with that of Shohrabuddin encounter by the order of Hon'ble Supreme Court of India. Consequently a single trial is being conducted by the Hon'ble Special Judge of CBI in Greater Mumbai.

After my shifting from Sabarmati Central Prison to Taloja Central Prison, CBI opened two more encounter cases at Ahmedabad i.e. (i) DCB Police station I CR No. - 3/2003 (Sadique Jamal encounter case) and (ii) DCB Police Station I CR No. 8/2004 (Ishrat Jahan encounter case). Apart from me who is arrested in DCB Police Station I CR No.- 8/2004 (Ishrat Jahan encounter case) on 04-6-2013, other police officers who worked in Crime Branch, Ahmedabad city, are also arrested in the said two encounter cases, and they are kept in the custody of Sabarmati Central Prison. Some of them are released on default bails.

Thus, as on today, apart from 9 Gujarat-Rajasthan police officers kept in Taloja Central Prison, there are 22 other officers / men who are kept in the different jails of Ahmedabad, Nadiad, Vadodara and Palanpur in the State of Gujarat amounting to total 32 police officers/ men which includes 6 IPS officers. Names of 6 more IPS officers are figuring in the chargesheets of Tulsiram and Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

To the best of my knowledge, nowhere in any part of the country, such a big number of police officers were/are arrested and continuously being kept in the jails for such a long period of time except in the state of Gujarat. The most notable part of the whole episode is that they are made to suffer in the jails, inspite of the fact that they had been and are loyal soldiers of this government who fought incessant war against, Pakistan inspired terrorism with complete honesty, integrity and sincerity without falling prey to any of the mundane temptations.

I most respectfully would like to submit and state that I, along with my officers, stood beside this government like a bulwark whenever it faced existential crisis in the past. When I, along with my officers have been facing a similar crisis in my/our life/lives, it was expected of this government to reciprocate and firmly stand beside me and my officers with a similar vigour and determination, which to my utter shock and surprise, could not happen.

Apart from very few senior officers who are arrested recently / shown accused in the different charge-sheets, most of imprisoned police officers/men had served under me as my juniors in the past during my tenures either at Crime Branch, Ahmedabad city, ATS-Gujarat or at Border Range Kutch-Bhuj, I, being the senior most officer and being one among them in the jail, have been making ceaseless efforts on behalf of all of them, to persuade this government to be of some use and assistance to me and my officers which, I am sorry to state, had not been fruitfully paid attention to. Verbal consolations given by this government, time and again, had been proved to be invariably hollow and deliberately misleading.

With the passage of time, I realized that this government was not only not interested in protecting us but it also has been clandestinely making all efforts to keep me and my officers in the jail so as to save its own skin from CBI on one hand and gain political benefits on the other. It is everybody's knowledge that this government has been reaping very rich political dividends, since last 12 years, by keeping the glow of encounter cases alive in the sky of Gujarat, while otherwise, remaining in the low profile and indifferent to the fate of jailed police officers.

This government suddenly became vibrant and displayed a spur of sincere activities only when Shri Amitbhai Shah, former MOS, Home, was arrested by CBI. It so happened that Shri Ram Jethmalani, the most learned, senior most and highest paid advocate of India was engaged for Shri Amitbhai Shah who appeared on behalf of him at all levels of courts, right from the lowest CBI court, to Special Court, to High Court, to the Apex court of India and got him released on regular bail within record time of 3 months of his imprisonment.

In contrast, when I, along with Rajkumar Pandian and Dinesh M.N, was arrested by the CID Crime, forget about providing the legal services, nobody from the government bothered even to provide a lip service to us or to our family members. On the contrary, apprehending the arrest of political leaders of Gujarat by CBI, all efforts, legal and political, were made by this government to ensure that none of us was released on bail so as to prevent the investigation going from the hands of Gujarat CID to Union CBI. The most heartless and shameful act of betrayal on the part of this government was that when Dinesh M.N., and Narendra Amin got released by their own individual efforts, it got their bails cancelled at the earliest opportunity and pushed them back behind the bars of Sabarmati Central Prison. Since then, my officers are made to compulsorily languish in the different jails for none of their faults. The only fault, if that is to be construed as a fault, which they committed was that they performed their duties diligently and served their country well under the direct instructions from this government.

Inspite of all such acts of betrayal and treachery, I was gradually reconciling myself with this government, when a skylab in the form of Supreme Court order of transfer of Shohrabuddin trial to Mumbai, fell on us from New Delhi, which was beyond wildest of my imaginations. With all regards for Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, I sincerely believe and state that but for the legal and political intrigues, machinations and maneuverings of Shri Amitbhai Shah, the trial of Shohrabuddin encounter case, followed by that of Tulasiram encounter case, would not have gone out of the state of Gujarat. It goes without saying that the cruel act of transferring the case out of the state has increased the agony of the jailed police officers on one hand and multiplied the hardships of their family members on the other.

And the crux of whole matter is that it was just to facilitate his trivial personal interest of fighting Assembly Election of 2012 that Shri Amitbhai Shah got the trial transferred and and betrayed our trust reposed in him whereby he forced us to suffer more and more in Taloja Central Prison on one hand and face the costliest trial in Mumbai Court, on the other, which none of us is in the position to afford. As if this was not sufficint, Shri Amitbhai Shah, through the order of Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, also managed the merger of Tulasiram encounter case into that of Shohrabuddin encounter case so as to prevent his own arrest into the second case whereby he almost closed the doors of regular bails to the rest of the police officers. Not only that, by converting two cases into one case, he has also aggravated the seriousness of the combined cases elevating the same into a rare category.

Under the circumstances, I and my officers feel ditched and disowned by this government and hence there remains no valid reason for us to continue to trust this government and its ace strategist Shri Amitbhai Shah who convincingly proved himself to be completely self-centric in handling the serious encounter cases with total disregard to the legitimate interests of jailed police officers whereby he has reduced himself to be a mere custodian of political interests of Gujarat government which he is jealously guarding at the cost of those of jailed police officers. And by doing so, he has been playing with our lives without an iota of qualms of conscience.

I have been observing right from the year 2002 that Shri Amitbhai Shah as a MOS, Home, had been completely mismanaging a sensitive Department like Police which would have been handled more carefully in the context of Godhra train burning, post-Godhra riots and resultant rise of Jehadi Terrorism in Gujarat. I am sorry to state that instead of providing an innovative and benevolent leadership for keeping the police force of the state intact, efficient and fighting machine, Shri Amitbhai Shah introduced a much despised British policy of divide and rule coupled with equally dirty policy of use the officers and throw them by deliberately spreading disinformations about them, whereby he succeeded in creating the "crisis of confidence" among senior officers on one hand and the government on the other. That, in turn, destroyed the command and control mechanism of Gujarat Police which is considered to be a "soul" of any uniformed organization anywhere in the world.

A situation so drifted that none in the department trusted the other, every one perceived the other to be a potential spy or rival who, as if were daggers drawn at each other and were out to harm or finish each other. Under the circumstances of such a suspicion lurking from all the directions, MOS, Home, lost all credibility and confidence vis-a-vis police officers and vice versa, which ignited the "yadavasthali of fratricidal police war" in Gujarat which was later on exploited by CBI opening the floodgates of politico-legal problems for this government on one hand and involving "patriotic police officers" in number of encounter cases on the other. The result was and is for everybody to see. A very big number of police officers are languishing in the different jails today. So much so that MOS, Home, himself fell into the grave which he used to dig for others.

I have been maintaining very exemplary patience and perseverance since last six years in the hope that better counsels would prevail someday and the soul of this government would get awakened in our favour. But this government has belied my hope. I realized the truth in the statement of Mahatma Gandhi who very rightly observed, "States are soulless machines.... And the governments have no conscience...." Accordingly, this government instead of construing my "dignified silence" to be a "virtue" worth rewarding has mistaken the same to be my "weakness" worth ignoring. It is most painful to state here that this government took me and my officers for granted all these years in the most arrogant manner.

During the course of my last six years' silence, I exhausted all the means and methods to secure justice for me and my officers from this government which hurled on us nothing but heaps of disappointments and frustrations. Hence the only way open for me and my officers is to adopt the path of Dharma as defined by Shri Guru Govind Singh, the tenth Divine Lord of Sikhs, who ordained to his disciples, "when all the ways and doors for getting justice are exhausted and closed, it is just (Dharma) to draw the sword". Accordingly, I have a moral justification to expose real culprits behind encounter cases by calling them Spade a Spade.

I, therefore, would like to categorically state in the most unequivocal words that the officers and men of Crime Branch, ATS and Border Range, during the period of years between 2002 to 2007, simply acted and performed their duties in compliance of the conscious policy of this government in the context of following circumstances:

A monstrous episode of Godhra train burning and equally horrible post-Godhra riots in Gujarat provided a pretext to Pakistan based terrorist outfits like Let, JeM and D gang under the direct supervision of ISI, to "convert Gujarat into another Kashmir" by exploiting the sentiments of the muslims all over the world. It was in this context that series of acts of terrorism like foiled attack on Rathyatra; bomb blasts at Godhra, Derol, Mehlol and Lunawada; bomb blasts in six AMTS buses of Ahmedabad City; Memco scooter blast; Nehrunagar cycle blasts; firing on Shri Niraj Jain at Vadodara and on Shri Laliwala at Surat; firing on Shri Jaideep Patel at Ahmedabad; firing on Shri Jagdish Tiwari and killing of Shri Haren Pandya; fidayeen attack on Akshardham Temple at Gandhinagar etc., took place in quick succession which seized common people of Gujarat with fear and apprehensions.

Jehadi Terrorism, thus, began to spread like a forest fire in all directions of the state with all its dreaded ramifications. Everywhere the police was clueless and that phase was almost a beginning of the anarchy in the state. Gujarat, having very long coastal and land border with Pakistan, was virtually on the path of becoming another Kashmir. It was in this context that "the pro-active policy of zero tolerance for terrorism" was adopted by the government of Gujarat at the highest level of its hierarchy. The said policy of government was most efficiently implemented by the Gujarat Police in general and by Crime Branch and ATS in particular as a part of their duty whereby all terror related crimes were detected, several national and international terror networks were bursted which included the number of encounter cases also. It was the Epic struggle launched by the officers/men of Crime Branch and ATS who tirelessly continued to wage war against those who had been waging war against India by working day in and day out, for years together at the cost of their health, security and family well being only and only in the greater interest of state, society and country.

I can say with pride that my officers and men could not only successfully prevent Gujarat from becoming another Kashmir, but they were also instrumental in providing a solid atmosphere of durable peace and security in the state which, in turn as a natural corollary, elevated the image of this government on one hand and cleared the path of development on the other. I state with all my humility that, but for the sacrifices made by me and my officers in thwarting the onslaught of initial disorder in the state, the "Gujarat Model of Development" which this government is so assiduously showcasing at the national level would not have become possible.

When Gujarat was burning under the inferno of Jehadi Terrorism, I used to get daily dozens of phone calls from the Biggies of Gandhinagar who probably saw a savior in me/my officers, but by the time I/my officers outlived my/their utility and were arrested by the CID/CBI under the very nose of this government, nobody bothered even to formally ask us as to how we were! It is unbecoming of this government that it, in this regard, has been proved good for nothing and has miserably failed in protecting its "loyal soldiers" who fought against the cross-border terrorism at its behest, while remaining in the vanguard of war. This immoral government, therefore, by all means, has forfeited its right to have a place in Gandhinagar, the city whose proud name is associated with Mahatma Gandhi, the tallest moral leader of world.

Gujarat CID/Union CBI had arrested me and my officers in different encounter cases holding us to be responsible for carrying out alleged fake encounters, if that is true, then the CBI Investigating officers of all the four encounter cases of Shohrabuddin, Tulasiram, Sadique Jamal and Isharat Jahan have to arrest the policy formulators also as we, being field officers, have simply implemented the conscious policy of this government which was inspiring, guiding and monitoring our actions from the very close quarters. By this reasoning, I am of the firm opinion that the place of this government, instead of being in Gandhinagar, should either be in Taloja Central Prison at Navi Mumbai or in Sabarmati Central Prison at Ahmedabad.

It is very rightly stated, "Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitaha" means, he who protects Dharma is protected by it, similarly, it can be stated in the context of encounter cases, "Prahari Rakshati Rakshitaha" means, he who protects police is protected by it. Mutual protection and reciprocal assistance is the unwritten law between police and government in such cases. As the government has miserably failed in protecting its encounter police, there remains no one-sided obligation on part of me to protect the traitors sitting in this government who almost have pushed patriotic and nationalist police officers into the Jaws of Death.

The logic is very simple, i.e, government and police officers are sailing in the same boat and have to swim or sink together. None should try to outsmart the other and try to swim at the cost of other, neither government nor the police officers. I would like to state in the most unambiguous words that this government, through the dirty tactics of Shri Amitbhai Shah, is unfortunately managing only for its own self so as to swim and continue to prosper in all directions, while ditching the police officers so as to sink and allow them to die unnatural death by drowning. By adopting such a suicidal path, this government, I am sure, is doing nothing else but is hastening and facilitating its own death by drowning.

Gujarat police, by my own experience as a police officer, used to be one of the finest and well managed forces in the country till the coronation of this government in Gandhinagar. Today the same proud police of Gujarat stands totally shattered and demoralized in the context of what happened to it in the light of continuous betrayal of jailed police officers since last six years.

What is more important to be noted here is that the virus of demoralization injected by this government into the body of Gujarat police, has not remained confined within the boundaries of Gujarat only. Deliberate demoralization of Gujarat Police by this government, by cascading effect, has reached every nook and corner and India, demoralizing the ranks and file of Indian police as a whole. This government, thus, by betraying jailed police officers of Gujarat, has not only been doing disservice to the state of Gujarat, but it has also been doing disservice to the nation as a whole.

Hon'ble Chief Minister of Gujarat has very rightly been talking of repaying his debt which he owes to Mother India. It, indeed, is the sacred duty of every citizen to do it. But, it would not be out of context to remind him that he, in the hurry of marching towards Delhi, may kindly not forget to repay the debt which he owes to jailed police officers who endowed him with the halo of Brave Chief Minister among the galaxy of other Chief Ministers who do not bear the same adjective before their names. This, as per my humble opinion, is also a part of the repayment of debt to Mother India.

Let me also further put on record and clarify my stand that I have been maintaining my graceful silence for such a long period only and only because of my supreme faith in and highest respect for Shri Narendrabhai Modi, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Gujarat, whom I used to adore like a God. But, I am sorry to state that my God could not rise to the occasion under the evil influence of Shri Amitbhai Shah who usurped his eyes and ears and has been successfully misguiding him by converting goats into dogs and dogs into goats since last 12 years. His unholy grip over the state administration is so complete that he is almost running the government of Gujarat by proxy. The resultant criminal negligence negligence of this government on one hand and wilful acts of omissions and commissions by Shri Amitbhai Shah towards the fate of 32 jailed officers on the other are so nauseating that it may take this government to the crematorial ground sooner or later.

Under the circumstances narrated above, this government, much against my will, has compelled me to adopt my own course of action to exclusively serve the interest of my officers independently of those of political leaders of Gujarat state. In pursuant of this course, I have to state in nutshell that this spineless government of Gujarat which is valiant only in words otherwise coward in deeds and impotent in actions has ceased to command my allegiance, trust and loyalty. And that is why this government has no reason to keep me continued in its service nor I have a reason to continue to be in the service of this government even for a single day.

I, therefore, out of the call of my conscience, do hereby tender this resignation from my service with renunciation of all the post retirement benefits which may kindly be granted with effect from date and time of receipt of this letter and oblige. And accordingly, I will consider myself to be relieved from my serivice with effect from the said date with or without formal order from your side which may kindly be noted.

As on today, I have been sacrificing seventh year of my precious life in the different jails of Gujarat and Maharashtra for the sake of Love for my country and now I am ready to sacrifice all the hard earned post retirement benefits for the sake of the same lofty love for my country and the nation.

And with this note, I say goodbye to the Gujarat Police, of which, a proud member I had been since last 33 years.

Thanking you.
Yours sincerely,

(D. G. Vanzara)
Dy. Inspector General of Police
Under suspension

Forwaded w/c through:

Superintendent, Sabarmati Central Prison, Ahmedabad

Copy forwarded w/c to:

1. DG and IG of police, Gujarat State, Police Bhavan, Gandhinagar, with request to kindly not prepare my Subsistence Allowance and other bills from the month of September 2013 onward and oblige.

2. Director, Central Bureau of Investigation, Plot No. 5-B, 6th Floor, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi-110003, for kind information and necessary action.

(D.G. Vanzara)

Advanced copy forwarded w/c to :

1. Addl. Chief Secretary, Government of Gujarat, Home Department, Sachivalay, Gandhinagar by hand

2. Director, Central Bureau of Investigation, Plot No. 5-B, 6th Floor, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi-110003 by RPAD

10

Published on 10 Comments on Recent Reports of Violence against women at Maps4Aid

Making it jazzy for those who find it dreary news too depressing. Here are headlines from February alone of reports of violence against women at Maps4Aid website. Note that these are a small fraction of what's happening. To land up in the list:

  • Out of all crimes that happened, a certain number got reported to the police
  • Out of the number reported to police, news media picked some.
  • Out of the ones picked by news media, someone or the other noticed and submitted it to the site.
  • Out of all the submissions, these are the ones that have been put up.

And this list is only February. And no, February ain't over yet. We, as a country are in deep shit. Get it?

Bihar: CRPF Sub Inspector beats up newly wed bride and in laws.

Maharashtra: Godman arrested for kidnapping and raping mentally challenged girl.

Gujarat: 3 Youths break into house and rape 19 year old girl.

Bihar: Hostel owner held for rape attempt on a 13 year old physically challenged inmate.

Indore: 2 minor girls allegedly raped by at least 15 men in broad daylight.

Delhi: 10 Years in Jail for Police Constable who raped girl

Chennai: Spurned youth stabs 18 year old girl to death in T Nagar.

Delhi: 7 year old girl resists rape attempt by a close relative at a wedding.

Kerala: 20 cases registered after allegations of Sexual Harassment of tribal women.

Hyderabad: Dowry forces 21 year old MBA student, mother to rob

Bihar: CRPF Sub Inspector beats up newly wed bride and in laws.

Maharashtra: Godman arrested for kidnapping and raping mentally challenged girl.

Gujarat: 3 Youths break into house and rape 19 year old girl.

Bihar: Hostel owner held for rape attempt on a 13 year old physically challenged inmate.

Indore: 2 minor girls allegedly raped by at least 15 men in broad daylight.

Delhi: 10 Years in Jail for Police Constable who raped girl

Chennai: Spurned youth stabs 18 year old girl to death in T Nagar.

Delhi: 7 year old girl resists rape attempt by a close relative at a wedding.

Street Sexual Harassment: 20 year old Student saves sister from molesters, beaten up.

New Delhi: Minor girl commits suicide after being molested.

Man sent to jail for life for raping 6 year old niece. Directs Delhi Govt to pay INR 2 Lakhs compensation to victim.

Suspected case of Honour Killing in Hoshiarpur

11 year old girl in Surat molested by her school headmaster.

Astrologer held on molestation charges

Rewari: Youth gets 7 years in jail for raping minor girl on December 19, 2010.

Victim Speaks Up: Files Dowry Harassment case against husband and in laws.

Dowry: 24 year old Laxmi Mishra hangs herself to death in Maharashtra.

Dowry Harassment: Man gets life term for murdering wife in 2010.

Mother speaks up for daughter: College student raped, mom registers FIR

West Bengal: 28 year old woman kills self after MMS scandal

Chennai: Man sentenced to 5 years RI for subjecting his wife Nagavalli to cruelty with demands for dowry.

Tamil Nadu: Teacher suspended for molesting girl in School.

Bangalore: Police arrest 68 year old teacher accused of raping 12 year old student.

Coimbatore: Woman commits suicide after killing her two daughters.

Dowry Harassment: 28 year old Soni Kumar succumbs to burn injuries in Karnataka.

Police Constable booked for raping minor girl on pretext of marriage.

Kolkata: 19 year old girl attacked with blade on V Day by former boyfriend.

Irked over his love proposal being rejected, youth abducts and murders teenaged girl.

Karnataka: Youth held for kidnapping and physically abusing minor girl for over a month.

Aizwal: Man hacks 24 year old wife to death, lynched by mob.

Denied dowry, man allegedly forced wife to have sex with friends.

Delhi Police constable arrested on charges of molesting a minor girl.

West Bengal: Man beaten up for protesting against daughters harassment, dies.

8 year old victim raped and and left to die on railway tracks in Ghaziabad survives.

Delhi: 22 year old pregnant woman raped, 2 arrested.

Bangalore: 6 year old girl raped and murdered.

Delhi: Man gets death for killing 6 year old girl after raping her in August 2007.

Bellary: Teacher held for raping a Class VII student for over 6 months.

Rohtak: Police Constable booked for abducting and raping minor girl.

Hardwar: Women abducted and sold: Gang busted, two arrested.

Indore: 30 year old Ex policeman arrested for harassing Class 11 girl

17 year old girl abducted by two unidentified men while returning from work.

Delhi: 17 year old girl raped by two men in a moving car. 2 arrested.

Delhi: 13 year old girl abducted and raped. 3 Arrested.

After 5 years, Mother and son sentenced to life imprisonment in dowry harassment case.

Mumbai: 16 year old girl from sarni promised film roles, raped.

Police arrests man who stabbed partially blind woman for rejecting his marriage proposal.

Chennai: Boyfriend, 4 others rape 19 year old girl after spiking her drink.

New Delhi: Traffic cop gets two years for illegally detaining and assaulting a woman.

Faridabad: 23 year old woman gangraped. Case registered against the 4 accused.

Devda Village of jaisalmer, Rajasthan: India faces epic crisis of female infanticide

Police arrests husband who set ablaze his 3 month pregnant wife on fire.

Chhattisgarh: 13 year old girl thrown out of train after rape attempt.

Haryana: Man accused of raping teenager arrested.

Maharashtra: Man arrested for raping his 23 year old physically challenged sister.

Gujarat: Police arrests man who raped mother of boy who eloped with daughter.

Hubli: 22 year old pregnant woman Pavitra hangs self. Investigations on.

West Bengal: Man flees after stabbing his wife. Victim battling for life.

Sirsa: 3 awarded life term for harassing 5 month pregnant Kaushalya for dowry and driving her to commit suicide.

Honour killing in Uttar Pardesh village, father, brothers arrested.

Lucknow: 28 year old pregnant Rubeena beaten to death by her two brothers.

Balasore: Police arrest 4, rescue woman who was forced into flesh trade.

Tamana Puri Speaks up against Dowry harassment. Police register case against husband and in laws.

Court orders Bihar Govt to pay Interim relief of INR 5 Lakhs to rape victim.

Honour killing: 25 year old Navdeep Kaur and her lover shot dead by her brother.

Locals rescue two baby girls from a canal in Bawana area of Delhi.

22 year old jhansirani commits suicide. Father arrested for sexually abusing her.

Bangalore: Sub inspector arrested for slapping woman conductor.

Godman held for rape attempt and trying to rob the victim of her jewellery.

West Bengal: 7 month old baby girl found abandoned in train.

10 year old girl raped repeatedly by her employer. Accused arrested.

Dowry Harassment: 22 year old Monika choked to death in Chandigarh