A few years back, a young man, who happens to be the son of a senior IPS officer of Odisha, was charged of a rape committed on a lady of foreign origin. The incident, which was seen through various prisms, like suspect and a suspension of disbelief, had taken place in a hotel in Rajasthan.
Notwithstanding the veracity of the allegation made by the lady , the accused son of the police officer Bittihotra Mohanty (Bitty) was tossed to a fast-track court trial which found him guilty within almost 7 days and he was jailed.
It is too late for any throw-back on the aspects that, Bitty was a brilliant student, which he doubly proved right during one of his subsequent days in a jail.
Seven days almost and a case was disposed of. It is not an attempt at finding a moral equivalence between then and now, but whether that was rape or consensual sex with the lady, no point in a skulduggery now.
And the cruel fiction today
But, here is a case that has lasted for seven long years ! The case of Nirbhaya. A soul stirring incident which took place nearly in public glare that made blood run cold, and a mountain load of evidences poured at the door-steps of the law, from day one, to today.
Untold numbers of trials in several courts, dates and pronouncement of sentences, slew of petitions, debates in channels and now politics creeping in , turning the wounds of the victims’ family greener , wrought with laments and exasperations.
Every time the accused were driven to the gallows, something came on the way, bulldozing the sentiments of a multitude of Nirbhayas in the country, consumed by fear of self-doubt.
Whatever the circumstances may be, but a true and heartrending incident was made into a cruel fiction.
Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Debi, now seems tired, sometimes monosyllabic and, most recently uninterested, as she gets closer and closer to see now politics is being cooked out of her remorse.
