Who says police is not ashamed of rape incidents? Is This Why They Try To Hush Up Cases?

What “thing” prowls Delhi which is neither human nor one can call it beast for that would be insulting the animals who are more moral than the “thing” that shames Delhi again and again. It believes in no morals or ethics, has libido that makes it brutal, sadistic and uncontrollably insane. Any female from a girl six month old to a woman 80 plus raises their uncontrollable flame of passion which singes anyone who is helpless or alone.

One may call the “thing” monster although the rapists of young babies or an octogenarian woman—both happened the day the chid of five was raped, brutalized and left to dieare abhorrent inhuman beings but may not be monstrous looking. But their acts typify hateful behaviour which also deviates from the usual course of nature.

More serious worry is that the assault on minors and very young ones has been rising, especially in Delhi. This trend is frightful. Young ones are helpless, many even do not understand what pains them. The younger ones for some reason arouse predators to be more brutal and beastly.

“These dastardly crimes have witnessed a drop in the age of the victims and a rise in the brutality that accompanied the sexual assault” according to analysts. A senior police officer was quoted saying. “Young children serve as easy target for sexual predators for obvious reasons. But if there’s one thing which is worrisome, it is the brutality which accompanies sexual assault these days. Brutality is replacing passion-driven murders.”

A report by Asian Centre For Human Rights (ACHR) Citing has made a stunning revelation, that child rape cases in India have witnessed 336 per cent rise since 2001. Citing National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) figures, the report by Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) stated that 48,338 child rape cases were recorded during 2001-11, which was an increase of 336 per cent in such cases since 2001 when only 2,113 child rape cases were recorded. The number rose to 7112 cases in 2011.

Why most child rapes are occurring in Delhi? The reason is that immigrants are maximum in the Capital and are seldom in the radar of law enforcement agencies. Dr Nimesh Desai, director of the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) is quoted saying, “Although general criminal tendencies exist in every society, there are sections of population which see more of such tendencies when compared to other sections.

“While rural-urban migration, the prevalence of pleasure-seeking and the culture shock that is a characteristic of transitional societies are major factors when it comes to such brutal cases, the socio-economic repression of the accused also plays a major part.”

According to another sociologist the lack of fear that the law and law enforcement agencies inspire in criminals bizarre tendencies that overtake the criminal mind from time to time. They are responsible for some of the most shocking cases of sexual assault to have been reported recently.

Another point which has not been noted is that almost all the rapists, except very few, are nearly illiterate, have no cultural background and live in low-income areas. They are always in a state of drift, most having no permanent address in Delhi. These generally escape police surveillance. The mistake is on part of the police. Having realised the type of people more inclined to commit rape with bestial brutality, it must keep such people under surveillance.

Actually, the police apathy indeed is responsible t a large extent for rape cases. There is no fear. During the height of protests and demonstrations demanding death for the four rapists of the 22-year-old in a moving bus on December 16, 20 more rape cases were reported in Delhi. The Delhi police’s behaviour towards protesters was to use blind force to clear Vijay Chowk in which an officer of rank equivalent to a DIG was recipient of a few lathi blows, a few women lawyers were manhandled.

The Government suddenly woke up, passed laws for stringent punishment, fast track courts were set up, police surveillance was increased and the denizens of Delhi were assured of safety for women.

But clearly nothing has changed in the rape capital Delhi. In the case of the 5-year old her father went to report her missing the police waved him away saying look for her in neighbourhood. But when the neighbourhood people found the girl in extreme pain and soaked in her own blood, the police allegedly gave him R2,000 to hush up the matter. And when protesters gathered outside the hospital the girl was taken to an ACP thought nothing of slapping a woman demonstrator.

A repeat of the December 16 and subsequent protests! It is not surprising at all. The government has soft corner for the police commissioner and thus is in no mood to remove him and send a message down the line that the strictest action will follow if duty is not performed properly. But for reasons known to the Government the police commissioner is irreplaceable. He did announce that erring police officers including the ACP had been suspended. Will any action follow? Or will they be re-instated once the public furore subsides?

Compare this to the incident in 1987. While the convoy with strict security of the Dy Prime Minister of Soviet Union Rzykov was coming from the airport and was near Rashtrapati Bhavan the car of the then Police Commissioner Ved Marwah was allowed to breach the security cordon of the convoy and allowed to proceed. His car had thus come in front of the convoy. Rajiv Gandhi was livid and he wanted Marwah to be shifted. It was at the intervention of Natwar Singh and Sarla Garewal that Marwah survived.

If Mrs Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi were prime minister today what could have been their reaction? The question does not need an answer. Their action would have been a lesson for the police in other places. An extreme case was reported from Bulandshahr. A journalist happened to catch at an all women police station a 10-year-old Dalit girl who had been raped was put behind bars. The police women were trying to persuade her family not to insist on filing a rape case.

If police had taken its responsibility properly, the moving bus on December 16 would have been stopped and searched. Nirbhaya would have been alive. In the case of the 5-year-old the police went a step further. They allegedly offered Rs2000 to hush up the matter. As the lead article in HT noted, “If the rapists are brutes then the police are showing that they are not much better in these cases.”

Fast Track Court was set up for the trial of the accused in the December 16 case. Its over four months and nothing has moved. Justice here takes a long time to dispense. The accused lawyers meanwhile are indulging in delaying tactics. Nirbahya’s soul must be in torment. But who cares if the accused of most brutal and heinous crime are not punished and if and when they are it is doubtful if they would be hanged.

In England in a case in which an 18-year old Black teenager was killed at a bus stand by four white boys but they were freed because of faulty investigation. A court of inquiry under a senior judge condemned the investigation commenting that there was institutionalized racism in the police force. Soon after the police commissioner was changed. Such shifting of the police commissioners is quite frequent. In India no higher up owns up responsibility, its minor hirelings who are made scapegoat. So long the senior most in the government or in police do not take moral responsibility the situation will never improve. Remember Lal Bahdur Shastri or more recently Madhavrao Scindia. Those days and those men seem to belong to another age.

The depraved would continue to prey on women. It will be just another case for statistical data. Both the predators and the police coexist with most probably the philosophy of Live and Let Live.

But after the latest offering of money to hush up the matter, never blame the Delhi police of not being ashamed of rape incidents n Delhi. They just do not want the cases to be made public and bring a bad name to Delhi. Credit the police for at least this much of concern for India’s capital.

By Vijay Dutt

(The author is former London-Correspondent, Hindustan Times)