By Akhil Kumar:
Another horrific story of a brutal rape of a 5 year old has rocked the capital. The social media is flooding with angry reactions from the youth as they feel cheated and betrayed, have the December protests had no effect at all on the administration and the police? While we saw the Delhi police brutally blowing lathis in full swing on protesters irrespective of gender and age in the December protesters, the Delhi Police ACP has took the misogyny of the hooligans in uniforms a step further by publicly bashing a female protester in yesterday’s protest.
The 5 year old was abducted, brutally raped, mutilated and kept in confinement for two days at Gandhi Nagar in East Delhi. The police refused to file an FIR when the family reported the missing child, The National Commission for Women (NCW) chief Mamata Sharma said she cannot go and meet the child’s family “because it is a holiday” and the police tried to silence the father of the victim by offering Rs. 2000. This shocking apathy and dereliction of duty on the part of the administration is outrageous. The police allegedly told the parents to just be grateful that she was found alive; this culture of ‘normalizing’ crime against women cannot be tolerated anymore.
What we really need to ponder upon is the inherent sense of being above the law that our police has acquired, I doubt any action would have been taken at all on the ACP had the incidence not been caught on camera. While the ACP has been suspended but the question still remains, if this is the level of gender sensitization in even the high ranking police officials, who do we really need protection from? The callousness of the police and the hollow promises are out in the open as the very attitude of the police towards the rape and the protesters paints a sorry picture of the state of affairs.
The youth protesters are angry and the anger is bound to spill over to the roads, they demand an answer and will not take any insult on their injuries anymore. The police will have to offer concrete plans on how they are going to deal with their deep seated misogyny and end this culture of abdicating responsibilities, their indifference will not be tolerated and this is resonating loud and clear in the slogans of the protesters. The police commissioner should resign immediately before he is hounded out of office by the people.
While I condemn the actions of the police in the strongest words possible, I also request the AAP or any other political party to stop manipulating the genuine anger of the youth for vested interests. Let us not give the sly media and the administration any opportunities to discredit the protests, there were many angry students protesting outside the hospital with placards in hand and raising slogans and there was no need to enter the emergency ward. While the anger is very important and understandable, it’s our responsibility to exercise our right to protest in a peaceful and democratic manner. We will intensify the struggle further and show them we cannot be intimidated but we need to think straight and organize, they want us to get carried away by emotions to make the crackdown easier, let’s show them we are here to stay.
It’s not a time to mourn, friends; it’s time to be angry, very very angry! Let us all take to the streets and reclaim our beloved city.