Unbecoming conduct

On 26 December 2001, a woman and her 13-yearold daughter were allegedly attacked and gang-raped by eight young men from Sovima village near Dimapur, the cultural capital of Nagaland. The accused youths first overpowered the driver of the auto rickshaw the mother and daughter were travelling in, and then took the victims to the old airfield at Sovima and raped them. Word of the incident spread like wildfire in the area, even as women came out on the streets to protest the rape. The police arrested all eight accused within two days but by then the situation had stirred the public to an unprecedented level of rage.

Angry protest marches and public meetings were held. At one such, in the second week of January, some speakers from non-governmental organisations demanded that the administration hand over the accused to the public so that they could be paraded naked through the city. Reacting to the public hostility, Horangse Sangtam, the Naga Council chairman, submitted a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner of Dimapur appealing that the severest legally possible punishment be given to the accused. Sangtam's memorandum also asked that authorities prevent lawyers from representing the defendants. In addition to this, several women activists severely criticised lawyers who represent accused rapists out of, what they believed to be, exclusively monetary persuasion. Tiala Sapu, president of the Naga Women Society, Dimapur, further alleged that lawyers openly lied in court to gain rapists their freedom, an opinion that drew the ire of many lawyers in the state. The Dimapur Bar Association resolved in an emergency general meeting to withdraw all legal advisors engaged with NG0s. Nonetheless, giving in to the pressure from public sentiment, the association decided not to represent the accused in this particular case.