A couple of minutes after waking up this morning, this is what I saw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjiKPnt_LM0

A 19 year old  Class 11 girl was beaten, stripped and molested on the streets of Guwahati while she was returning from a party at 10pm in the night. The shame of India is that a significant number of people will rationalize this incident by focusing on a girl partying, what she was wearing, who she was with, and not on what happened with her. Some news channel reporters shot this incident, and it went viral on the net. 96 hours have passed since the incident, and only 4 people from this mob have been arrested.

This is one of those animals -Amar Jyoti Kalita  who, from his Facebook profile, works at an Assam Govt. company called Amtron. He has apparently been arrested. If you can fuck his life, please do so. Thanks.

There is a sad truth about what happened - though it outrages and saddens me, it doesn’t surprise me. Look at this Hindustan times headline on January 1, 2008 - Mob molests 2 women on New Year’s Day . This was on New Year’s eve. The women, part of the same family, were returning after celebrating New Year at J W Mariott hotel, and were accompanied by one of the victim’s husband.  A year before that, something similar happened at the Gateway of India in Mumbai. Similar to today’s incident, that too was recorded and circulated. Lot of outrage and anger followed. Some of those beasts, all teenagers, were  arrested. To my knowledge, none of the perpetrators were convicted or their conviction wasn’t news-worthy.

Unlike most other things, one cannot blame this only on the government. Yeah, police response can be faster and they can go harder against these beasts, but one cannot expect the police to patrol all the streets all the time. The main problem is that when an average Joe sees an incident like this, he decides to walk away. Not help the victims, not call the police - just walk away. That is how 2 young people - Keenan-Reuben, died in Andheri, Mumbai last year when they fought people eve-teasing their girlfriends. Bystanders thought it was none of their business as the two were beaten to death.

What should one do? Not go out on the streets with girls. Carry guns all the time. The solution at the individual level are pretty trivial. This is where the government can do its due - frame tough laws, and hang these beasts. These people shouldn’t be treated like humans. We should do what we do to animals who go crazy - shoot them.