Outrageous law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh

20 October, 2012

It is very obvious that the police at the lower rungs of the administrative ladder do not care even a wee bit when a case of eve molestation is brought to their notice.

THEY JUST turn away the victim and her family. Finally, the aggrieved family has to approach the higher officials who then intervene to have a report filed and action taken. Such cases are very common almost all over the state. But when such an incident takes place in the state capital of Uttar Pradesh, what impression will the average citizen form about the prevailing law and order situation in the state after Mayawati’s exit?

In this case a miscreant allegedly molested a 20-year-old girl and tried to tear off her clothes in broad daylight in the state capital when she slapped him in retaliation to regular harassment. The girl cried for help but people in the street did not stop or catch the boy. However, a woman came forward and covered the girl with her duppatta. The victim was also escorted to her home by the woman. Later, the girl and her father went to lodge a complaint at Khandari Bazaar police outpost.

But shockingly enough, the police allegedly told them to compromise because by lodging a complaining the girl would get undue publicity and would adversely affect her marriage prospect. In other words, the police initially refused to register the complaint of the girl. It was only after the girl met the senior superintendent of police (SSP) along with her father, that her FIR was registered and the accused boy was arrested, reported The Times of India.

And in Allahabad, too, there have been innumerable instances to show how cold and callous the police are towards the rape victims. In a recent case when a rape victim was too shy to use the word rape and had expressed in guarded language that her modesty had been outraged, the police SO did not record her complaint and stuck to his stand stubbornly, asking the victim to write in her report that she was raped: Whatever be the word used, the truth would have in any case been established in the post-mortem report. Why was the cop insisting? Was he getting perverted pleasure out of putting the girl to shame and embarrassment by asking her to write ‘l have been-raped?’

Such disgusting police staff should immediately be suspended if not dismissed for forcing a victim to pass through mental trauma in addition to the physical torture that she had already suffered. How long will this continue?

Though the accused in the Lucknow case was arrested, the incident created ripples in the capital. Several women organizations including All India Democratic Women’s Association condemned the incident and demanded action against the police officials who initially refused to lodge the complaint of the girl. Mayawati’s Rally is bound to take up this issue and one can expect fireworks to dominate in this regard. The BSP would also accuse the state government of discriminating against a Dalit IAS officer in a hearsay case of sex exploitation in a running train. He was arrested and suspended!

But in this particular case the police were not doing anything in the matter in spite of the fact that the boy had tore off her clothes. The GRP officer, who was slow in arresting the IAS officer on what could be a cooked up case, was immediately transferred. Will the UP Government now also transfer or penalize the cops who shunted away the molested girl and her father from the police station?