In East Delhi, women describe how Diwali riot escalated into sexual threat

In East Delhi, women describe how Diwali riot escalated into sexual threat: "The scale of violence in my neighbourhood this week, the resulting police presence and media attention, have set in motion currents of religious resentment that will poison the air for some time to come. But the most familiar story here, is still the one that is the most easily dismissed ‒ of how politically loaded events like riots, revolutions and uprisings escalate instantly into sexually threatening situations for women.

The accounts are endless. Twenty-year-old Chandni, beaten and stripped by a gang of four policemen until she fainted, dragged into safety to a neighbour’s home on Saturday. Thirty two-year-old Rehana, whose wrist was broken by a policeman repeatedly asking her why Muslim men were such cowards, running away and leaving their women behind for the Hindus. Forty three-year-old Tahira, who sent her three daughters away to their grandparents home, when Hindu rioters pulled down their pyjamas to “show the weapons they would use on Muslim women”."



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