Armed forces not new to cases of sexual abuse
Major-General A K Lal, who faces a court martial on charges of misconduct and misbehaviour will be the first Major-General to be tried in the Army for sexual harassment.
By TNN |
NEW DELHI: Major-General A K Lal, who faces a court martial on charges of misconduct and misbehaviour will be the first Major-General to be tried in the Army for sexual harassment.
Lal was removed as commander of the 3 Infantry Division at Leh in early September after the charges were made. Officials said the order for the 'summary of evidence' — the legal stage preceding a court-martial or the actual trial — to be recorded against Lal would be issued after the case is scrutinised by the Army HQ.
As reported earlier by TOI, Captain Neha Rawat had complained that Lal had misbehaved with her on the pretext of teaching her yoga and meditation, taking advantage of the fact that she was serving under him.
But Lal's wife and daughter had defended him, accusing Rawat in turn of 'improper behaviour'. The court of inquiry, however, has found enough prima facie evidence against Lal to set the stage for a court martial. This once again underlines the fact that the demon of sexual harassment is now steadily raising its head in the armed forces, with well over 10 such cases being recorded since January 2004.
Though women officers are being inducted into the armed forces since the early-1990s, they constitute an extremely small minority in the male-predominant environs of the Services.
There are just about 950 women in the Army out of a total of 35,377 officers; 740 out of 10,563 in IAF; and 240 out of 7,336 in the navy.
Women officers, who can serve a maximum of only 14 years and are not allowed to join "combat arms", have been demanding permanent commission in the armed forces for quite some time now. But to no avail. A recent defence ministry study, in fact, holds that women officers cannot get permanent commission at this stage since they have neither been trained for command.
Lal was removed as commander of the 3 Infantry Division at Leh in early September after the charges were made. Officials said the order for the 'summary of evidence' — the legal stage preceding a court-martial or the actual trial — to be recorded against Lal would be issued after the case is scrutinised by the Army HQ.
As reported earlier by TOI, Captain Neha Rawat had complained that Lal had misbehaved with her on the pretext of teaching her yoga and meditation, taking advantage of the fact that she was serving under him.
But Lal's wife and daughter had defended him, accusing Rawat in turn of 'improper behaviour'. The court of inquiry, however, has found enough prima facie evidence against Lal to set the stage for a court martial. This once again underlines the fact that the demon of sexual harassment is now steadily raising its head in the armed forces, with well over 10 such cases being recorded since January 2004.
Though women officers are being inducted into the armed forces since the early-1990s, they constitute an extremely small minority in the male-predominant environs of the Services.
There are just about 950 women in the Army out of a total of 35,377 officers; 740 out of 10,563 in IAF; and 240 out of 7,336 in the navy.
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Women officers, who can serve a maximum of only 14 years and are not allowed to join "combat arms", have been demanding permanent commission in the armed forces for quite some time now. But to no avail. A recent defence ministry study, in fact, holds that women officers cannot get permanent commission at this stage since they have neither been trained for command.
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