Three men were detained on Tuesday for the brutal rape-murder of a 29-year-old Dalit law student in a small town near Kerala’s Kochi last week, a crime that drew comparisons with the Delhi 2012 gang rape.
Police said two of the detained suspects are neighbours of the woman, who was alone at home and found in a pool of blood by her mother when she returned from work around 8pm on April 28.
“We have some leads in the case,” additional DGP K Padmakumar said.
The autopsy revealed she was savagely assaulted with sharp-edged weapons after being raped. The body bore at least 30 cut wounds, her abdomen was slashed and intestines were ripped apart.
The traumatised mother is bedridden in a hospital. “We had complained to police about the danger to our lives. The tragedy could have been averted had they taken timely action,” she said.
Image and report from Hindustan Times
Reacting to the shocking news people are asking questions like this.
Why Police is not able to save our women’s honor even when they are inside the house at day time?
How can you say “no death penalty” when people do such gruesome crimes ?
Why public flogging or stoning are not brought back as punishments in such heinous acts ?
Why government is not providing stronger homes for women living alone ?
How can a society allow a grown up girl to live in such an insecure shack?
How can a mother leave her daughter alone knowing very well that there are threats ?
Thankfully, this time due to the circumstances of the case, no one is enquiring about the victim’s attire and why she was present at that place at that time.
Sadly very few are asking the questions like these that matter.
How can we ensure that our family and thereby the society in which we live are gender equitable ?
How can we delete from our young men’s mind the false notion a that women love forced sex rape ?
How can we prevent a person becoming a rapist ?
How can we easily identify a potential rapist among our midst ?
How can we reduce the “rape culture” of our society?
What as a society we can do to make it safe for all to move around every where at what ever time they feel like in whatever attire, alone or in whatever company ?
Look! Stupid people everywhere!
How can you say “no death penalty” when people do such gruesome crimes ?
Do the murderers of “uppity” Dalits achieve folk-hero status among Hindutva extremists?
Does executing them elevate them to martyr status?
No, no elevated status for criminals. Society at large are asking for death penalty for criminals who do rape-murders, though humanists oppose it.
Glad to hear India hasn’t developed a fetish for sexist outlaw/martyrs – count yourselves a step ahead of the US in that regard.
As for opposing the death penalty in general, those of us who do so have an array of reasons – most centered on limiting the abuses of power by the state and those fallible/ruthless humans who run it.
I think it has a lot to do with gender segregation, rather than gender respect, being taught to children right from the word go. If, right from the start, children are not gender segregated, especially through their entire school careers, but instead actively taught how to share the world, the country, the city, the building, or whatever space, and how to be respectful and aware of each other in close proximity (this works both ways), then that would be a start. How young people are then taught to be aware of the gender differences in a positive way and guided to healthy friendships that freely cross gender lines, it might begin to lay the basis for healthier gender relations.
I’m not suggesting that this will eliminate rape from the society, but laying the foundations for new, constructive and positive ways of perceiving both one’s own gender and the gender of others seems a more effective way of bringing about change, than piecemeal responses to the individual consequences of inhuman and destructive gender relations.
That destructive gender relations are not only a problem in India, but in very large parts of the world, does not make it any less of a problem in India. It makes it much worse. But it also offers the possibility of action at a global level to compliment action at the local.
I agree!