While we were yet to recover from the news of rapes in Uttar Pradesh, came further horrifying news of the body of a two-year-old girl washing ashore at Siridao beach. The body, according to the police probe, was either eaten by an animal or by reptiles. Eight days after the body of the child was discovered, the police are still making efforts to find the parents of the baby, but have yet made no headway.
The news of the finding of the body at Siridao came, when the nation was already outraged by the rape cases in Uttar Pradesh. The crime in Hathras that led to the death of the woman is a gruesome warning that no beti in the country is safe. The brutal ‘marpeet’ of the girl – we are now told it was not a rape – led to her death due to an injury on the neck and the trauma resulting from it. The woman was attacked on September 14 and after her condition deteriorated she was transferred from Uttar Pradesh to Delhi’s Safdarjug hospital, where she breathed her last and was cremated in the early hours of the day. If the crime at Hathras was not a rape, then there was another in Uttar Pradesh’s Balrampur district when a 22-year-old Dalit woman died after allegedly being raped by two men. This happened on the same day that the woman from Hathras died. It was again brutal, with the mother of the girl stating her daughter’s legs and back were broken, though the police have denied this.
India rose as one in 2012 to demand and get justice in the Nirbhaya rape case. That was another horrible crime, and earlier this year four of those convicted for the crime were hanged. The anger that was seen on the streets in December 2012 led to changes in the law that one expected would act as deterrents to the commission of the crime. The minimum sentence for a gang rape is now 20 years imprisonment and there are fast-track courts for crime against women. Yet, eight years later apparently little has changed in the country as rapes and crimes against women continue. In 2019 there was the murder of the Unnao rape victim who for months had battled for justice and the she was burnt and fought for her life. She lost both battles and India lit candles for her.
How many betis in India will face attackers before the nation comes to their aid? How many candles will India light in solidarity with the victims, but there will be no justice delivered and the families of the victims will light their funeral pyres? The political posturing of elected representatives visiting the families that takes place every time there is such a crime has to end. This serves no purpose other than to score over the other political party. What is required is an investigative and justice system that works in favour of the victim and not in favour of the accused.
What has happened in the rape and murder cases in Uttar Pradesh is just the opposite of what is needed for India. Unless this happens, gender-based crimes will not end in the country. The awakening that was believed to have happened with the Nirbhaya case has not happened. We may have the most stringent of laws, but they will remain ineffective if the investigations are not equally excellent. They have to complement each other to make India safe for all.
