Muzaffarnagar: They saw their families attacked, relatives killed and their homes burnt down. Now five women have filed complaints of rape and gang-rape, a new horror that has emerged after the riots in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh in which nearly 50 people were killed and some 45,000 displaced.
The women from the Fugana and Shamli villages in the district, have alleged that they were raped by rioters when the communal clashes began three weeks ago.
The police are investigating the complaints, some filed by husbands who convinced the women to come out against their attackers. 17 people have been booked for three of the alleged rapes.
Some of the women, who are married and in their early 40s, alleged that they knew their attackers who gang-raped them before burning down their homes in the first two days of the violence.
“There are five complaints which are under investigation. We are probing it in the most impartial way and we will take action,” said Harinarayan Singh, a senior Muzaffarnagar police officer. Since some time has passed since the alleged rapes, the police are waiting for pathological reports.
Fugana was one of the villages worst hit by the clashes that erupted in the aftermath of the killing of three men in August, two Jats and one Muslim boy. The violence spiraled as incendiary speeches by politicians and rumours fed the simmering tension between two communities.
Three MLAs were arrested and half a dozen others have been booked for inciting the violence.
Thousands of families living in relief camps have refused to go back to their villages out of fear. Many of them said they saw their relatives attacked and killed by their own neighbours.
