Saudi rapist escapes from India without facing the law

Crescent International

Dhu al-Hijjah 03, 1436 2015-09-17

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

Rape is a very serious charge to be leveled against anyone. When a Saudi diplomat was accused of repeatedly raping two Nepalis women for several months, the police registered a case against him. But under pressure from the Saudi regime, the diplomat was whisked out of India last night. Isn't rape a very serious crime and don't women have any rights to secure justice for the horrific indignity they have suffered?

Delhi,

Thursday September 17, 2015, 09:57 DST

In Saudi Arabia, adulterers are stoned to death. The law of course applies to ordinary people even though the medieval regime insists it applies Islamic law. Contrast this with the case of a Saudi diplomat who was whisked out of India last night under pressure from the Saudi regime even though there were serious allegations of rape against him and a number of other Saudi officials.

First Secretary Majed Hassan Ashoor at the Saudi embassy in Delhi was accused of raping two Nepali women hired to work as domestic servants. The First Secretary is only one rank below the ambassador. He should have been an example of upright conduct, especially representing a country that claims to be governed by “God’s Law—the Qur’an and the Sunnah of His noble Messenger (pbuh)”—according to article 2 of the Saudi Constitution. At the very least, Ashoor should have been given 100 lashes.

What happened in his case? He was whisked out India under what the Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman said was “diplomatic immunity”. Two Nepalis women, aged 30 and 50, said that they were starved and sexually abused by him and other Saudi nationals. They were held in terrible condition in an upscale neighborhood of Delhi for several months. The women said they were raped repeatedly, sometimes by seven or eight men in one day. And they were given little food. The two poor women may have suffered continued abuse had it not been for a tip-off from an Indian non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that alerted the police to their plight.

When the police raided the apartment in the Gurgaon suburb of Delhi last week, they found the two women in terrible condition. Following the women’s statements, the police registered a case of rape, sodomy and illegal confinement against the Saudi official. The initial police report did not name the official but said he was from Saudi Arabia.

"We thought we would die there," one of the women told the AFP news agency, adding that they were abused (euphemism for rape) every day. They said the apartment was in a high-rise and there was no way they could run away.

What was the response of the Saudi regime and its media to the allegations of rape against one of its diplomats? The Saudi embassy in Delhi refused to allow the accused to be questioned by police to get his version of the story while the Saudi regime denied any wrongdoing.

The medieval regime’s media went one step further: it accused the police in Delhi of “intruding” on the diplomat’s property! According to Saudi media logic, the Delhi police should be lashed for its temerity to intrude on the diplomat’s property. Don’t they know Saudis are above the law and their property is sacred space?

What’s the big deal about a couple of Nepalis women being raped? They should consider themselves lucky that a Saudi diplomat considered them worthy of his attention!

END