The rape case may have died a natural death, except that earlier this week the survivor, her lawyer and her aunts travelling in a car were involved in an accident, where the aunts died and the girl is battling for her life in a hospital and the lawyer is also admitted in a hospital, stable but on a ventilator. It was after this accident that the Supreme Court moved in and transferred all the cases connected to the 2017 rape to a court in Delhi later put on hold. It was only after the accident and more public protests that the Uttar Pradesh authorities finally began to act in the case with some seriousness. It was only after the accident that the Bharatiya Janata Party finally awoke to the issue and expelled its four-time MLA. And the Uttar Pradesh police have now suspended the constables who were entrusted with the task of guarding the girl.
What does this reveal of a State government that acts to protect its women and children only when faced with the anger of the entire nation over its inaction? Is Uttar Pradesh attempting to prove that the politically connected are protected, whatever the crime they are accused of? Yes, we know that politicians do get special treatment, but in the Unnao rape case, it took a year before the man who had been accused and identified was actually arrested by the police. And he was held only because the heat on the authorities increased to the extent that it had to show that it was working. The biggest blow to the administration is that the land’s highest court felt it fit to transfer all cases related to the rape to a court outside the State, to a court in the national capital.
If the Uttar Pradesh government wants to redeem itself in the eyes of the nation, it has much to do. Justice in the Unnao rape case has delayed, the survivor’s family has been harassed enough – her father dying while in judicial custody, her aunts killed in an accident, her uncle who had taken up the case arrested in a 21-year-old case and the girl herself hospitalised. Is there hope of justice for the common man and woman who goes to the police to complain against a person in power? When it requires the intervention of the Supreme Court to galvanise the authorities and the polity into action, then there is something drastically wrong with the State and with governance in general.
Public anger over the delayed action has been escalating. But there is now hope that justice will be delivered. CBI has got seven days to complete its investigation into the fifth case relating to the accident. CBI has already booked 10 people for murder, including the MLA. The court has directed that the trial in the main case relating to the rape of the survivor will have to be completed within 45 days from its commencement. The survivor, her mother and other members of the family have been provided security. All this has been directed by the Supreme Court. Until the court moved in there was little hope for the girl and her family, and for women in Uttar Pradesh.
This sad state of affairs in the country is a precursor to a dark future if the situation is not remedied. At least now, the Uttar Pradesh government and the police have to act to clean up the image that it has created of itself in the eyes of the people. Though late, there is still a chance to do so.
