Aurelio Viegas
The rape and murder of Irish national Danielle McLaughlin at Canacona caught everyone’s attention in the recent times. As the friends of the deceased person, initially asserted that it was not the handiwork of one person but two or three are involved in this case, still the police strengthened their hold on accused Vikas Bhagat, who now says that he did not kill the woman but instead three of his friends killed her. Now if Bhagat story is true then it should be confirmed on the medical report that she was raped by two or more persons. And regarding this none of the facts came to light.
Secondly, if the accused is insisting that three of his friends are involved, then why the police didn’t give him the chance to speak or to investigate thoroughly in that matter? After the report on Herald, the Canacona Police says that the three friends were interrogated and police clarified that they are not guilty. But the problem is: Have the police caught the same friends, which Bhagat has mentioned in the letter to his sister or not that has to verify, since he had not mentioned the names of his friends in that letter.
Day-by-day the Goan image is seen going down on the world map. Everytime a issue is coming on Goa’s honour, the politicians interfere in that and the result is a “denied justice”.
Recently a heartbroken mother of a gang-raped of 20-years old girl from Rohtak, Haryana said “I would ask everyone to not give birth to daughters to avoid seeing this day that I’m seeing… every woman fears this day for their daughters since these goons are alive”. Her heart-breaking statement not only captures her trauma and helplessness at what happened to her daughter, but shows how little she thinks of the elaborate law and order mechanism in India has in place to ensure the safety of women.
In our own backyard at Vasco, the child rapist is still lurking and in hiding and must be laughing for the inefficiency of our police force.
As citizens, it is our duty to impress upon a rape survivor and her family that we are on her/their side. When it comes to gender violence, silence is not an option.
