Despite the post-Nirbhaya pledges to not let atrocities against our daughters, mothers, sisters and wives hurt our national conscience, women continue to cry hopelessly. The news we heard the other day was one of extreme cruelty. Near New Delhi, a woman was gang-raped by three persons while travelling in an auto after her nine-month-old baby was thrown out of the vehicle. This incident has shocked the entire country. The fact that the infant later succumbed to the head injuries it suffered makes India hang its head in sadness.
The incident, which occurred in the night of May 29, 2017, near Gurugram, came to light only the other day. The woman, aged 23, was going to her parents’ house in Khanda village with her baby following a tiff with her husband. It is reported that the police took no action though the woman had lodged a complaint with the police on May 30, the next day. The ghastly incident came to light only after the woman lodged another complaint with the police the other day. Despite suffering from the severe physical and mental trauma of the gang-rape, the mother rushed her infant to hospital as soon as her tormentors discarded her after their heinous act. Though the hospital authorities pronounced the infant dead, the mother, who refused to believe it, ran along the metro rail with the dead infant held close to her chest.
Similar incidents have been recurring in this region. In one incident, a 23-year-old woman was gang-raped and murdered. In another, a woman was raped in a running car and later dumped on the wayside in an unconscious state. No one has been arrested in any of these cases.
It was near the national capital that the three devils threw the infant to death and then gang-raped the mother. That Delhi which should be an example for the entire democratic India and project the nation’s noble culture before the whole world.
We heard about the appalling incident in which two bus drivers and a conductor gang-raped a 15-year-old girl near Salem. It happened at Narayanapalayam village, near Salem, in Tamil Nadu. The girl had run away from home after having quarrelled with her parents. The two drivers and the conductor gang-raped her after halting the bus at night.
What did we give back to the girl who died after she was most cruelly tortured and gang-raped in a running bus on December 16, 2012, right in the middle of Delhi? Even if the court of law punished the guilty, even if the 132 crore people of India collectively begged her pardon, it does not compensate for the way the girl's life was diabolically nipped in the bud. Instead, we should have paid homage to her by making sure that something similar will not happen again. Unfortunately, we have been unable to give this assurance of safety and security to the women who are now living and those are yet to be born in the country.
It is also unfortunate that the government’s sincerity and capability in ensuring safety of women in the country is being repeatedly questioned. The women of this country, who are continuously being threatened by the recurring incidents of injustice, humiliation and cruelty, are demanding conditions where they can live with dignity and honour in this country. Shouldn’t those in power, who are eager to give all possible considerations to animals, care about the safety and security of humans, too?
