IT wasn’t the fact that she was murdered in broad daylight that got me horrified, nor was it the fact that the public did nothing to save her from sixteen stab wounds, and even more that a concrete slab was used to smash and bludgeon her head. What got me rattled and terribly shaken was that the Delhi police took an hour to reach the spot.
A full hour in the national capital, in which passersby saw the blood-stricken body of a teenager lying on a busy road! It wasn’t too soon, that a ruling party person shouted, “Love-Jihad!” Did the police also know that the boy was from a different community from the main community? Was that why they took a full hour to reach the scene of the crime?
In my mind I hear an imaginary conversation between a constable and his chief, “Sir, there is a murder happening on the main road!” “Which community is the boy from?” “Sir, it is a murder!” “Yes, constable, but if he is from a particular community, we can say it is love-jihad, and we will be rewarded by the politicians and not blamed for inaction!”
And so, in my imagination, the police turn a blind eye, and more votes are gained, by using the girl as a victim of a greater, more sinister plot than murder! That’s the police turning a blind eye, but today, the turning of the blind eye technique has become a way of life, towards a larger objective: “Sir, some men have been murdered!”
“What were they doing?” “They were carrying mutton in their truck!” “Mutton? Don’t go near that truck, just say they were carrying beef!” And another blind eye is turned as people in the country think that their cows are being slaughtered.
I know that to a great extent the gruesome Delhi murder will no longer be looked at as a lapse by the police, because of the ‘love-jihad’ angle. People will now start talking of the love-jihad problem, and how that is affecting our nation. Nobody will wonder why there was no policing. Nobody will wonder what cowards we have in our nation, that no one could stop the boy from murdering a girl in broad daylight. Oh no, love jihad is now the angle everybody will scrutinize the case with.
In the same way I know that the lynching of the transporters of meat will not be considered as police inaction or the circumventing of justice, as our people will think that the murdered had killed cows. Why people should be killed does not matter, police inaction does not matter, but the greater cause will be pondered and debated and talked about.
All this will continue, and we will not worry about such inaction throughout the country till one day something happens to our friend or family member, and then it will be too late..!
—Email: bobsbanter@gmail.com
