life in general: when will we (india) guarantee a life of dignity to our sisters and daughters?

It is not the first time we get to read about the heinous crime of rape and also not the first where the victims are little girls. But I am absolutely nauseated to read about the 15 February rape of a 12-year old girl by a Railway Protection Force constable and 6-7 other accomplices at the slum cluster near the Kanpur railway station (below, at the end of this post, is a complete news report on this incident; some other newsreports on it are here and here).

A majority of personnel working in the various police forces in India have become utterly corrupt and immoral. Their political masters are not any better. In the meanwhile, the majority of affluent and middle-class urban Indians are so steeped in their mindless consumeristic lifestyle that they won't even raise a murmur of protest against the horrific crimes taking place in their cities.

(THE DRAWING TO YOUR RIGHT HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM www.dudleythegorilla.com/images/sketches/kay.jpg)

I pray that the mother, father and siblings of that 12-year old little girl, who was killed after being raped, get justice. Such a crime is the rarest of rare and if the police authorities of the state of Uttar Pradesh and in the entire country as a whole have any shame then they should leave no stone unturned to provide justice to the tragically-devastated family of that little girl. To begin with they should release to the media the entire details of the culprits; right now the media reports don't even give the full name of the RPF constable.

We see such crimes happening in a scattered manner across the country with ominous frequency. We have also seen worse -- organised sexual violence against women of minorities in Gujarat in 2002, in Bombay and Surat in 1993 and in Delhi in 1984. What kind of India is this where we can't guarantee a life of dignity for our fellow sisters and daughters?

Here is one of the newsreport on the shocking incident:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Lucknow/Kanpur_rape_4_suspects_held/articleshow/2788642.cms
Kanpur rape: 4 suspects held
17 Feb 2008, 0136 hrs IST,Faiz Rahman Siddiqui, TNN

KANPUR: A 12-year-old girl was gangraped in front of seven younger siblings allegedly by eight people in Kanpur. The incident came to light only after the victim's mother, Sarita, who was away in Delhi to borrow money from her relatives to get her husband Rajesh Keshari released from the Naini Central Jail in Allahabad, returned late Friday night.

The post-mortem confirmed that the girl was raped and later killed. The police have handed over the body to her mother, a daily-wage labourer.

Kanpur SSP Anand Swaroop said four suspects, identified as RPF constable Vinay, contractor Amar Singh, Santosh Kesharwani alias Lambu and Pappu alias DV, have been taken into custody.

The girl's mother claimed the constable, Vinay, had recently arrested Rajesh, who used to work as a vendor at the Kanpur Central Railway Station and sent him to jail on fake charges. Sarita, who belongs to Sasaram in Bihar, said, "The accused had tried to outrage my daughter's modesty earlier too. When I objected, RPF constable Vinay and other accomplices threatened me with dire consequences."