When Team Herald reached the village of Camurlim, the reporter
on the ground heard one of the policemen tell another in Konkani
‘This Herald creates unnecessary problems. They highlight
these things”, and then his voice trailed off as he got down to
the business of conducting a panchnama of the ‘incident ‘ which
Herald taken up, only to take it to its logical conclusion.
Here we have a widow, who even at the risk of repetition, was
stripped, almost beaten to death and chilly powder shoved into
her private parts in an orgy of violence by her neighbours- a
man, his wife and his mother over a dispute over their 20 point
programme allotted plot in the slums of Camurlim. While our
stories have dealt with the case and police inaction, this story
needs another narrative. A narrative that looks at how we as a
society respond to violence against women.
This Camurlim incident is nothing short of an attempt to murder
and yes rape, under the new law, the same one which sent
Tehelka Editor Tarun Tejpal to jail. OB vans of TV channels with
frenzied reporters laid siege to the crime branch office in Dona
Paula for days recording every moment of his interrogation.
Everything from the hug he gave his daughter to the food he ate
became an intrinsic part of a seven day soap opera. The alacrity
of the crime Branch in flying to Delhi to arrest Tejpal and force
him to surrender and face trial is well documented. Interrogation
was quick, the charges filed with lighting speed and the man sent
to jail on the wave of a national media outrage.
Goan society too wasn’t left behind in its one point objective
to register themselves as people who cared. Soon, two sides
emerged, one which sad poor Tarun and other which felt that he
got his just desserts.
The widow of Camurlim got its first media visitor to track her
story, six days after she was brutalized, when Team Herald
reached her village. The police had begun its “investigations”
just then. There has been no word from civil society or political
parties, too busy holding innate press conferences to defend their
past actions. And while the three brutes have been arrested,
precious days have been lost. A six day gap between the incident
and the panchnama, is a sure shot way to lose a criminal case.
The difference is too clear. While the police was directed to get
Tejpal behind bars, the violators of the Camurlim widow are
under no such pressure.
Without further ado, this is what needs to be done. At attempt
to murder and a rape charge should be slapped against not just
the man but the two women too for beating her with a stick and
stuffing chilli and turmeric power into her genitals. The crime
branch should be handed over the case with a directive for time
bound investigation. Others involved in harassing and torturing
her should be brought into the gambit of the investigation and
arrested. And finally action should be initiated against more
police personnel for delaying the investigation to such an extent.
But above all, civil society should really be declared the biggest
culprits for abetting such crimes by its studied silence because
the widow from Camurlim doesn’t make good party conversation.
What kind of civility is this?
