The entire Bollywood and the nation has been stunned after singer Anurag Papon Mahanta – popularly known as Papon was seen on camera Kissing an 11-year old girl.
The live video, shared by singer’s official verified social page, has been since widely criticized across the large masses. While travelling in Guwahati city bus, I found two people watching a video of the singer Papon kissing a girl on their mobile phones.
I searched the internet and found the same video and at first I was not able to believe my eyes that the person in the video is Papon Dada. After watching the video, anyone can get to know about the girls being shocked at being kissed on her lips. The video also had someone asking “Yeh kya ho raha hai?” when Papon kisses the girl. Soon after that he turns to whoever was filming the incident, asked if the “live video” on social media is still on and upon being informed, he asks the fellow to switch it off with a guilty look on his face.
After this incident few people can be seen backing Papon on the arugument being presented by Papon that he is an affectionate loving guru, who simply wanted to kiss the “Shishya” on her cheek but by mistake ended up kissing her on the lips.
Even if you look at the guru-shishya culture, the relationship among guru and shishya is considered as sacred than that of a parent-child relation. I decided to visit back the history of guru-shishya and i am yet to find any such instance where a guru kissed the lips of the shishya in order to show love and affection.
In fact, forget about lips, even if any adult touches any child on any part of the body, we must be enraged and angry. No matter whether Papon did this accidentally or intentionally but under the eyes of law he will be seen as a culprit.
Section 7 of the POSCO act clearly states “Whoever touches the child in an inappropriate way will be considered as sexual assault”. On the ground of doing something accidentally can’t be taken under law and if so, then a rapist after raping a girl can probably say in defense “She said no, but accidentally I heard it yes” and in the same way the culprit can get away.
What actually appears more appalling is the parents of the girl calling the entire incident a love of a teacher. The reason can be the parents don’t want to drag their daughter in court cases and they might be scared of the celebrity influence of Papon. But I think the parents must stand by their children in order to make her believe that if next time something similar took place then she must know that this is not okay.
While the singer admits at one point that what he did was not right but soon he contradicts this admission with the statement “In today environment, to touch a girl child, however innocent your thoughts are, is not advisable”. Papon need to understand the fact that touching a girl child and kissing a girl on her lips without her consent are two different scenario.
Without any doubt, Papon is a magical singer and he enjoys a celebrity status with a huge fan following but law cannot be different for a common man and someone who is a celebrity instead it is equal.
For those who are backing Papon by terming this episode a small one must come out of their “Fan” mode. Papon is liked for singing well, not for what he did now, no matter intentionally or unintentionally. Having stayed in Guwahati for a long time, I know people love him but we can’t put a blind eye on what he had done.
I love Papon for his singing quality but being a fan of Papon, I will not support this act under any circumstances. The law must take its course of action without any influence.
