People are angry from Kolkata to Badlapur in Maharashtra. Protests are going on all over the country. Doctors are demanding their safety. Even the Supreme Court is worried. Everyone was busy worrying about the safety of Bengal’s daughters when such an incident happened with the daughters of Badlapur in Maharashtra that people came out on the streets. Somewhere in school, somewhere on the road, somewhere in the bus, somewhere in the hospital, daughters are suffering the atrocities of the evil-intentioned Mahishasur. In a country that considers daughters as power, daughters repeatedly ask for power for their safety and ask when will the shield of protection be raised for them.
While the entire country is angry over the rape and murder of a lady doctor in Kolkata, a shocking news has come from Maharashtra. The public is protesting in Badlapur, Maharashtra and both these protests (Kolkata and Badlapur) are taking place on the same issue and that is sexual exploitation of girls. That is, nothing has changed from Kolkata to Badlapur.
Two 4-year-old girls were molested in a school in Badlapur, due to which a crowd of thousands of people took a railway station hostage. However, after lathicharge by the police, the railway track was cleared and train service was restored after 10 hours. These people allege that they were made to sit in the police station for 12 hours to register an FIR in this case and the police treated the victim families as if they had committed a crime. To take revenge for this, thousands of people came out on the streets today and these angry people took Maharashtra’s Badlapur railway station hostage and the situation became such that the police had to close this railway station.
People took to the streets demanding justice
After all this, when the police lathicharged these protesters, this crowd of common people also pelted stones on the police and said that why is it still so difficult to seek justice from the government system in India?
In fact, when goons openly misbehave with the sister, daughter, wife and mother of a family and the police silently watches all this and refuses to take action, then the public has no other option but to take the law in their own hands. People understand that if they do not come out on the streets and show their fierce side, then they will never get justice and if they quietly bear this oppression of the criminals, system and police of our country like a decent citizen, then their children will never get justice.
It is very unfortunate for any country that its people have to come out on the streets and protest to stop such harassment of girls.
The staff members raped him
A 31-year-old female doctor from Kolkata was on duty in her own hospital. But she was raped and murdered there and in Badlapur, a sweeper from her school did such a heinous act with two 4-year-old girls that any parent and family would lose their temper in anger and pain after knowing about it. But in both these cases, the system and the police did not do justice to the victim families and this is the reason that today in Badlapur, thousands of common people left their work and came out on the streets to get justice for the girls and they have demanded from the government that if the accused is not hanged in the middle of the crossroads in the next 24 hours, then they will organize a huge protest and make the streets their home.
Among the girls who were sexually abused in Badlapur, one girl is only 3 years old and the other girl is only 4 years old. Whereas the accused who sexually abused these girls is 24 years old and is of the same age as their father.
Threatened after sexual abuse
The name of the accused in this incident is Akshay Shinde, who used to work as a cleaner in a play school in Thane. But it is alleged that on 12th and 13th August, this person sexually abused two girls in the school bathroom and also threatened these girls that if they told anything about this to their parents, he would kill them.
These girls were so scared of this threat and disgusting act that they started trembling even on seeing the school gate and one of the girls even refused to go to school and only after this did the parents of these girls come to know that a very horrific incident had happened with them in the school. On August 16, when the family of these girls went to the police station to register an FIR against the accused, they were made to sit outside there for 12 hours.
Police inspector Shubhada Shitole, who is herself a woman, refused to register an FIR for the victim’s family and these families were treated in such a way at the police station that they kept sitting there till late night hoping that their FIR would be registered. But a woman inspector did not have any pity on them and their innocent daughters.
Late at night, when some people created a ruckus outside the police station and some local leaders gathered there, the police came under pressure and filed an FIR against the accused and arrested him on 17 August and put him in jail. Amidst all this, when the police and the parents of the victim girls reached the school for investigation, the school administration told them that the CCTV camera installed in the school was switched off on the day of the incident and the school does not have any CCTV footage of the incident.
Police not ready to help
The victim families were so devastated by this that they started saying why is it so difficult to get justice in this country? Here neither the police wants to do their work honestly nor the school they trusted and sent their daughters there is ready to help them.
The protesters demanded the death penalty for the accused
In protest against this, all the people of Badlapur had called for a bandh today on 20th August and their demand is that the accused Akshay Shinde should be hanged within 24 hours and justice should be done to their daughters. The Maharashtra government has suspended the woman police inspector in this case and action has also been taken against three employees including the teacher of the school where this incident took place. People also protested against this by going to the railway station today and the rail service was also affected for a long time. But the thing to think about is that why does the police not do its work honestly in most of such cases in our country? And why does it happen that the victim families are forced to beg for justice?
Three major reasons for delay in FIR
In the Kolkata incident too, the police did not do their job ‘honestly’ and after this the government also removed ACP Chandan Guha from his post. In this case too, the woman inspector of Thane police did not register an FIR on the request of the victim’s family and when there was a controversy over this, the police suspended this woman inspector. That is, be it the police of any state and any party’s government there, in all such cases, the police never registers an FIR on the complaint of the victim’s families in the first instance and this happens in all the states and there are three reasons for this.
The first reason is that- When an FIR is registered, the police has to first investigate the matter and then take action and this increases their workload considerably. To avoid this, the police’s first attempt is to settle the matter without filing an FIR.
Second- When an FIR is registered, that case is added to the record of the top officer of that police station and when the victim families do not get justice in such cases, those cases become a failure for the policemen, which becomes a big obstacle during promotion in their career.
And third- There is also pressure from the government on the police to show a reduction in crime in their district and area and this is the reason that when any such incident happens, the first attempt of the police is to not file an FIR directly in that case. The same has happened in the case of Kolkata and Badlapur, due to which people have had to come out on the streets for justice. However, these pictures are not good for this country. On this incident of Badlapur, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has said that he will give the harshest punishment to the culprit. But people are saying that they do not trust the government and the police at all and they want justice ON THE SPOT and they want to see the accused hanged in front of their eyes.
Aaj Tak Bureau