Four months on, Delhi Police yet again fails capital’s women
22 April 2013 2:13 AM GMT
While everyone is going around finding suitably evocative alternate means of identifying rape victims, let me suggest something else. Why not refer to the cases by the name of the accused? I am going to call the Gandhi Nagar toddler rape case by the name of the brute who did it – Manoj Sah. While his face may be hidden for the purpose of a Test Identification Parade, there is no reason why his name should not become synonymous with the gruesomeness of the crime he committed.
I don’t know what has distressed me more – Manoj Sah’s brutality or the insensitivity of the Delhi Police. It is totally beyond comprehension as to how he could do the things he did to the little girl or why. The depravity of his mentality is a sign of whose failure – his mother for not having taught him to respect women, society for not allowing for a healthy attitude towards sex or were his actions just the result of some sickness in his mind?
According to reports, he and his accomplice had watched porn on their mobile phones before luring the little five-year-old into the room. At an age when she should be playing with toys, she became their plaything for a few hours and after they had torn her apart, they left her for dead.
There can be no two opinions on what Manoj Sah’s punishment should be. Not death – that would be too good. For people like him, the Biblical punishment of an eye for an eye seems most just. Manoj Sah must be made to undergo exactly what he did to the little girl. He too should feel the pain she is undergoing.
As for the Delhi Police, they should hang their heads in shame. No one says that they can prevent rapes, that they can monitor each and every home. But they certainly can respond to complaints. Statistics clearly state that most rapes are committed by neighbours. Had the cops at the police station reacted in a timely manner, and done the basic local area search, at least the little girl would have been found earlier and spared days of agony.
And there is no way that Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar can escape responsibility for his men’s inaction. Had the Manoj Sah rape case happened without the background of the Delhi bus gang rape, he could have gotten away with sacking a few lower functionaries. But if this is how his ‘sensitised’ Force is reacting after the highly publicised gang rape, then either Neeraj Kumar has not been able to communicate the basics of policing down to his men or he has simply placed the most incompetent men in sensitive positions as Station House Officers. Either way, he has to own responsibility for the way his men behaved.
The Delhi Police needs to understand that they are not the law enforcing wing of a feudal army. They are meant to serve a civil society. And it is every citizen’s right to be served with courtesy and promptly irrespective of address, position or background.
Soni Sangwan has reported on Delhi-warts and all- for several years. She is now a Journalist-in-Retirement, dividing her time between watching her two-year-old daughter grow and seeing the city she loves evolve
I don’t know what has distressed me more – Manoj Sah’s brutality or the insensitivity of the Delhi Police. It is totally beyond comprehension as to how he could do the things he did to the little girl or why. The depravity of his mentality is a sign of whose failure – his mother for not having taught him to respect women, society for not allowing for a healthy attitude towards sex or were his actions just the result of some sickness in his mind?
According to reports, he and his accomplice had watched porn on their mobile phones before luring the little five-year-old into the room. At an age when she should be playing with toys, she became their plaything for a few hours and after they had torn her apart, they left her for dead.
There can be no two opinions on what Manoj Sah’s punishment should be. Not death – that would be too good. For people like him, the Biblical punishment of an eye for an eye seems most just. Manoj Sah must be made to undergo exactly what he did to the little girl. He too should feel the pain she is undergoing.
As for the Delhi Police, they should hang their heads in shame. No one says that they can prevent rapes, that they can monitor each and every home. But they certainly can respond to complaints. Statistics clearly state that most rapes are committed by neighbours. Had the cops at the police station reacted in a timely manner, and done the basic local area search, at least the little girl would have been found earlier and spared days of agony.
And there is no way that Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar can escape responsibility for his men’s inaction. Had the Manoj Sah rape case happened without the background of the Delhi bus gang rape, he could have gotten away with sacking a few lower functionaries. But if this is how his ‘sensitised’ Force is reacting after the highly publicised gang rape, then either Neeraj Kumar has not been able to communicate the basics of policing down to his men or he has simply placed the most incompetent men in sensitive positions as Station House Officers. Either way, he has to own responsibility for the way his men behaved.
The Delhi Police needs to understand that they are not the law enforcing wing of a feudal army. They are meant to serve a civil society. And it is every citizen’s right to be served with courtesy and promptly irrespective of address, position or background.
Soni Sangwan has reported on Delhi-warts and all- for several years. She is now a Journalist-in-Retirement, dividing her time between watching her two-year-old daughter grow and seeing the city she loves evolve
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