Angry India cries out for justice
19 Dec 2012 12:42 AM GMT
Anger, grief and outrage….it all spilled over Tuesday as a 23-year-old continued to battle for life in a Delhi hospital after being brutally torturewd and gang-raped, becoming the anguished cynosure of a nation whose leaders spoke out in parliament and whose people took to the streets to voice their protest.
As some bare, unspeakable details of the gang-rape began to emerge in the media, a frisson of insecurity went up spines across cities and towns but there was also palpable anger. This found reflection not just in street demonstrations - in the capital and in other cities - but also in parliament where MPs spoke in one voice to condemn the barbaric crime and demand speedy justice.
Analysts tried to make sense of what had happened, the psychopath edge of the crime that gave it its bestiality. Saying that this was a sociopathic crime, psychiatrist Sanjay Chugh told CNN-IBN, ‘The mindset of the perpetrators of gangrape is an amalgam of mob/herd mentality, disinhibition, utter disrespect for social norms and a certain knowledge that the so called protectors of law will either turn a blind eye or can be pressurised or simply bought with a certain sum of money.’
Carrying slogans like mere skirt se oonchi meri aawaz hai, Delhi’s women - and men - who demonstrated this Tuesday asking for exemplary punishment, agreed.
Many women said the incident has spread fear and a feeling that women are not safe even if they have a male companion. ‘It is really shocking and scary for people, especially who stay alone. I am a student, I stay here with my friends. My parents are also very scared to leave me alone in the city after such rape cases,’ says Surbhi Dudeja, a first-year student at Delhi university.
‘I think the best way to teach them (the accused) a lesson is to hang them so that no one in the future could ever dare it again,’ she said. Shweta Arya, 31, who works as a relationship manager with a finance consultancy, says she has to move a lot for her work and though she drives her own car, the incident has left her scared.
‘My office is in Noida, but I have to move to different parts of Delhi for my work. Of course, women always have some sense of fear, like I usually avoid driving alone too late in the night, but now I feel even more afraid,’ she says.
‘I think such accused should be punished at a public platform. Either they should be hanged at a public place or they should be pelted stones by people,’ Arya added.
As some bare, unspeakable details of the gang-rape began to emerge in the media, a frisson of insecurity went up spines across cities and towns but there was also palpable anger. This found reflection not just in street demonstrations - in the capital and in other cities - but also in parliament where MPs spoke in one voice to condemn the barbaric crime and demand speedy justice.
Analysts tried to make sense of what had happened, the psychopath edge of the crime that gave it its bestiality. Saying that this was a sociopathic crime, psychiatrist Sanjay Chugh told CNN-IBN, ‘The mindset of the perpetrators of gangrape is an amalgam of mob/herd mentality, disinhibition, utter disrespect for social norms and a certain knowledge that the so called protectors of law will either turn a blind eye or can be pressurised or simply bought with a certain sum of money.’
Carrying slogans like mere skirt se oonchi meri aawaz hai, Delhi’s women - and men - who demonstrated this Tuesday asking for exemplary punishment, agreed.
Many women said the incident has spread fear and a feeling that women are not safe even if they have a male companion. ‘It is really shocking and scary for people, especially who stay alone. I am a student, I stay here with my friends. My parents are also very scared to leave me alone in the city after such rape cases,’ says Surbhi Dudeja, a first-year student at Delhi university.
‘I think the best way to teach them (the accused) a lesson is to hang them so that no one in the future could ever dare it again,’ she said. Shweta Arya, 31, who works as a relationship manager with a finance consultancy, says she has to move a lot for her work and though she drives her own car, the incident has left her scared.
‘My office is in Noida, but I have to move to different parts of Delhi for my work. Of course, women always have some sense of fear, like I usually avoid driving alone too late in the night, but now I feel even more afraid,’ she says.
‘I think such accused should be punished at a public platform. Either they should be hanged at a public place or they should be pelted stones by people,’ Arya added.
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