On many occasions, I have shed tears of sorrow at misfortunes of people I know. But, the other day, when I came across the story of a gruesome incident in newspaper, I cried with sympathy for a little girl whom I have never met in my life. I could not control my tears while reading about the brutal gangrape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in the Kathua district of Jammu.
I felt numb for a while when I learned that she was drugged, held captive, and raped by a gang of eight or ten over days. One of them asked others to wait so that he could rape her a final time before smashing her head with a stone and abandoning the body in the forest. I can’t recollect at which point I stopped reading that news.
She might have felt that it was better to die than suffer like that. I believe, with great sadness, that she might have died right after they sedated her so that she would have been completely unaware of the butchery unleashed on her. An animal sent to a slaughterhouse may be treated with more dignity.
I remember the inexplicable lump in my throat as I read that news. There were police personnel in the gang that repeatedly raped and then bludgeoned her to death. Those people have insulted the motherhood and womanhood of the entire country. We cannot just sit back deeming lightly of the issue by concluding that some people are born with a criminal mind. We will have to delve deep to find the source of such callous behaviour.
That little girl belonged to a nomadic tribe and the ghastly act is said to be part of the conspiracy to drive the community away from the area. Pullu, the village where I was born and brought up, holds a special place in my heart. It fosters a deep sense of belonging. But for nomadic people, the entire world is their home. They roam across a vast dramatic landscape and wherever they go that becomes their place. Do those people who love only their village have any right to drive them away?
Just like the Nirbhaya case, this outrage will also eventually die down. The harsh reality is that such criminals, who enjoy political and religious patronage, will continue to haunt innocent souls.
Images of panic-stricken children hiding in their homes or under culverts, their faces twisted in fear, flood my mind. Before falling unconscious, that little girl might have cried out to the God in prayer. Those who committed that heinous crime cannot be called animals. Animals never treat their little ones with such ruthlessness. Those people are some vicious beasts in human form. Yet, they are a disgrace to the entire human race.
There were reports that some people had protested against filing charge-sheeting against those demons. I’m not a legal expert, but I feel that they should also be arraigned in the case because there is an inner law called conscience.
Instead of wasting time by arguing over their politics and religion, we must look around and identify such beasts with polluted minds living among us. We have seen shadows of such evil spirits in our society. We must be able to keep our children safe beneath our wings and guard them against any plots that are meant to harm or ruin them.
Those two little eyes will forever haunt me every time I close my eyes.
(The author is a popular Malayalam actress)
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