Gender and rights activists have protested against the Union government presenting a gallantry award to a Chhattisgarh cadre police officer who allegedly supervised the torture of Soni Sori, a school teacher accused of assisting the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
On Republic Day, the officer, Ankit Garg, was awarded the Police Medal for Gallantry for his role in an October 9, 2010 counterinsurgency operation, in which about 250 members of the State's Special Task Force and district police ambushed Maoist guerrillas in Mahasamund district. Six Maoists were killed and two civilians, including a deaf and mute manual labourer, died in controversial circumstances. The police maintained that the civilians were caught in the crossfire in the course of a fluid operation.
Mr. Garg was subsequently appointed Superintendent of Police of Dantewada when Ms. Sori was arrested in October 2011 and accused of acting as a Maoist courier.
In a series of letters submitted to the Supreme Court, Ms. Sori says Mr. Garg verbally abused her and directed police personnel to torture her. She alleged that Mr. Garg watched as junior police personnel stripped her naked, administered electric shocks and assaulted her. According to her lawyers, a medical examination found two stones in Ms. Soni's genital tract and another in her rectum. {Read on} {Image Source}