Tuesday, March 19, 2024
HomeOpinionsWhy our media, cops and lawmakers don't deserve to celebrate the Hyderabad Encounter

Why our media, cops and lawmakers don’t deserve to celebrate the Hyderabad Encounter

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Before posting my views let me first disclose that neither I’m against encounters nor against death penalty for rapists or terrorists. I’m not a human rights activist for these people because in my view they are not Humans.

With that out of the way, I am just amazed at the reaction people have showed across social media, the reporting done by some channels where they are hailing this encounter as a Surgical Strike and the general mood of the people. It’s as if this encounter has become a panacea for all the crimes against women in our country. What we’re forgetting is that this is the same police which didn’t help the parents of the doctor when they went to seek their help on that fateful day. How can the same police be expected to deliver justice when they themselves are a part of the problem in such cases.

Without going in the merits of whether this was a fake encounter or not, I’m wary of this type of justice being delivered by the police because more often than not they’ve been proven to be utter shoddy in their investigations and incompetent in getting convictions. For example, take the case of Arushi Talwar where Noida Police botched up the case. Take the case of a student killed in a Gurgaon School where the police falsely charged the bus conductor of murder, or take the case of Kathua where the police worked with a definite malafide intent to accuse and charge some people who were not even present on the crime scene. These are just the famous cases which are reported by Media. Just imagine what happens to everyday cases that are not even reported?

Secondly let’s deal with some sections of the media hailing this as the Surgical Strike. Nothing could be further away from the truth. A Surgical Strike is first sanctioned by the Topmost levels of the Government. Plans are made. Then the best options are chosen depending upon the circumstances and only then is the strike conducted. If even one small thing can go potentially wrong, the mission can be aborted even at the last second. Comparing such a meticulously planned operation with a spur of the moment encounter is not only disrespecting our Armed Forces but also shows the immaturity and lack of knowledge of our media.

Next are the lawmakers. I was astounded to see a lot of lawmakers actually celebrating this encounter. During the debate in Parliament, some of them had even supported the lynching of the rapusts by a mob. That lawmakers were talking about taking law into your hands, that too at the highest temple of democracy was the most ironical thing I’ve witnessed in my whole life. Especially since the same lawmakers were ferociously arguing how mob lynching can’t be allowed a few months back when lynching incidents were reported in the media. This should be a wake up call to our society that not only are our media and police sensationalists & incompetent but the worst are our lawmakers who instead of making new laws and removing the ones that are being misused by rapists to go scott free are advocating people to take law in their own hands. If they can’t solve the problems faced by our society then they should just resign.

Lastly I can understand the reactions of our society to this encounter. Remember that the conviction rates for rapes in our country are abysmally low. Majority of cases are never reported. Seldom do we see a rapist actually getting convicted. Just yesterday came the news of the accused burning the victim in Unnao after the accused was granted bail. It is against this backdrop that we will have to see the anger of people and the celebrations that followed. Our society as a whole has been let down by its media, police lawmakers & judiciary. They want a silver lining among all the dark clouds. The problem is that those who have failed us are also trying to hail encounter so that they are not blamed in the process.

What we should never forget is that how we reached here in the first place? If the Police is sensitive to rape victims and tries to do proper investigation, if the media actually tries to make a difference by highlighting each and every case and not just some cases where it has hopes of high TRPs, if the lawmakers make tough laws and remove the legal loopholes in archaic laws and finally the judiciary which gets more convictions in a time bound trial, do we need ever need such encounters to feel happy that justice has been done?

When we as a country can keep Ajmal Aamir Kasab in our jails for years and kept feeding him just to show the world that we are not a banana republic and are a country where law takes its own course, why do we need encounters & mob lynching to avenge something? Will our lawmakers next allow vigilantes to roam the streets because they have failed us? We’ve seen how the Delhi Government was interested in giving financial aid and a sewing machine to a convict in Nirbhaya case and was sitting on his mercy petition for so long, then why are we not asking them any questions.

If we have to develop and prosper as a country and if we really want to become a super power then we have to make sure that the Constitution and our Laws are supreme and are applied in the same way in all cases because such encounters and cases of mob justice can be misused to settle personal scores or worse to trap someone. So as a society we should take our police, media, lawmakers and judiciary to task instead of celebrating their failures as we did today.

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