Most abominable act

In our schooldays, rape and killing of a brother and sister by the notorious gangsters Ranga and Billa shook the city of Delhi and the entire country as it was unprecedented and heinous. Thereafter, over the years, we have been exposed to more heinous cases of rape, molestation and murder, including that of Nirbhaya in not too distant past that once again rocked the nation and its establishments! Kolkata’s most recent case is a new addition to this abominable list of the crimes most heinous! 

I have spent a good part of my life in the city of joy and being born and brought up in Delhi and a confirmed Mumbaikar for more than past 2 decades, I have always appreciated Kolkata for its several qualities, most importantly for the respect for women and elderly! And this is not a mere impression, but borne out of personal experience relating to real life incidents with my then very young daughter and my aged parents! That this incident happened in Kolkata and that too inside the holy precincts of a hospital makes it all the more abominable and repulsive! 

When shall we stop treating a girl or a woman as a commodity or an object of consumption instead of another person equal to us? Why a woman rejecting our obscene overtures has to be necessarily trolled, harassed and worst of all, victimised? Why a girl cannot walk alone during any part of a:24 hours day? And how can a man become a beast, most wild in his sexual arousal that he can indulge in worst of acts with any female, age no bar? 

And we as a nation, need to stop politicising such issues ( a sexual demon has no religion or political philosophy) but act firmly by forcing the law keepers and conscience keepers of our nation to come up with deterrents that send a chill down the spine of these sex hawks before they indulge in such heinous acts!  We need to go beyond social media and candle light marches before this evil strikes someone our near and dear!