We will begin with the most obvious rider. We shouldn’t be judge, jury and executor and pronounce judgment on the Babush Monseratte rape and trafficking case. And yes there is always the risk of a politically influenced investigation which will go superfast or slow depending on what the instructions are.
However these two obvious safety guards cannot be an insurance against some very hard circumstantial evidence backed by more substantive ones which the investigative agencies have shared. And when a case of rape of a minor coupled with trafficking is filed and investigated against the sitting MLA and a former minister by a minor girl, it is inhuman to doubt the girl and attribute motives, just because the politician is a Robin Hood do-gooder who has had regular brushes with the law.
Let us be very clear about this. There are two central figures in this story. A very clear victim, a minor girl who has said that she was raped. This takes conviction and courage. And a seasoned politician, who will naturally play victim. The normal norm for any society here is to jump to the defence of the real vulnerable victim, not the powerful politician who is playing victim. While the investigation into this case cannot be influenced by Monserrate’s past, it is important to take into account those benchmarks to know the mark of a man. When you are booked for an attack on a police station (later discharged), or caught with foreign currency worth Rs 25 lakhs at Mumbai airport or when your charged for raping a German girl, (Iater acquitted because the victim did not depose) , a complaint of rape and trafficking is likely to find far more traction than if a government servant with absolutely no track record of cases was charged with the same.
And when a serving MLA faces a serious investigation charges of rape and buying the victim for Rs 50 lakhs, it’s a slur not just on the MLA, but to the ecosystem which allows such politicians to breed, prosper and rule in Goa. How many politicians in Goa have been probed for corruption and criminal actions, their cases pursued and convictions extracted? Every politician in Goa is confident of getting away irrespective of who is in power. When the Miramar sex scandal exploded at the turn of the century, the promise was to identify and arrest the sons or relatives of major politicians involved in luring college girls to a cyber cafe, getting them drunk and raping them in an apartment above. Have all the guilty of the Miramar Sex scandal been punished?
The confidence that allows politicians like Babush Monserrate to even attempt what he has been charged with, is because the system had surrendered before him. Local politicians, the police and to an extent even sections of the media, have never questioned the increase in his wealth, his multiple property purchases and perennial allegation of involvement in the Goa version of the cash for votes scam, give cash, get votes. Over the years, such politicians feel they are absolutely invincible where they are not a part of a system. In fact they are the system, or so they establish.
Politicians like this, who should pariahs in society are actually heroes. Which is why the Babush Monserrate rape case and its investigation and conclusion will determine, whether we as a society are civilised enough to respect a rape victim and fight for her rights and justice.
The failure to prove the charges, after claiming there is strong digital, circumstantial and forensic evidence, will allow the feeling of invincibility rise. And that is the biggest danger. Goa cannot go on living with a sad reality where the politically powerful who are paid to make laws are the most efficient law breakers in a land, where the brakes to put a stop to criminalisation of politics has failed.
