On August 14, a day before India’s independence day, a drunk man raped a 14-yr-old girl on a train while 11 people watched to scared to stop him. One of them was a journo with the Times of India, the largest selling English daily in India.
My question to you is: what would T-man do in such a situation? I mean Testesterone isn’t only about muscle, is it?
Here’s the article. Read it and decide your moral to the story:
Paralysed with fear, we couldn't stop him' By Ambarish Mishra Times News Network Mumbai: We were worse than the Mahatma's three monkeys. We, the five passengers on the last Borivli-bound train on Tuesday night witnessed a youth sexually assaulting a minor, mentally-challenged girl in the second-class compartment. But paralysed with fear, we could neither effectively confront the man or stop him. Seated by the window, I was engrossed in a book. When the train chugged out of Malad station, I thought to take in some fresh air. As I stood in the gangway, I saw Salim Samsher Khan sexually assaulting the girl, all of 12 or 13. He had forced himself upon her on the long seat overlooking the gangway. He was struggling to pull down her skirt. The girl was screaming. "Yeh kyaa kar rahe ho. Stop it,'' I told Salim. An angry Salim reminded me of the Sanskrit proverb that a person mad with sexual desire has neither fear nor shame. "Go away. Why are you here? I shall throw you out of the running train,'' he snapped. He was drunk. His blood-shot eyes barely concealed a streak of madness. The girl struggled to shake free. The girl's screams had caught the attention of the other passengers. They craned their necks to gather every detail of what they thought was one of the routine tamashas’ on the suburban train - a quarrel, a practical joke, or some such. What we saw left us numb. Salim had pulled the girl to the floor and was raping her. Burdened with our middle-class sensibilities, we remained silent.
As the train slowed down at Borivli station, Salim smoothly alighted, but only after telling the girl to keep her mouth shut.
She staggered to the nearest seat. I saw Salim striking up a conversation with someone, as if nothing had happened. I and a
fellow-passenger, Vasant Kulai, then handed him over to the railway police.
Railway police inspector Jaysingh Chavan said no case could be registered until the girl was "produced’‘. Then began a long trek
to the car-shed between Kandivli and Borivli where the rakes halt for the night. With two constables in tow, Mr Kulai and I scanned
every compartment of the six rakes, but the girl wasn’t anywhere in sight.
Futility seemed to stare us in the face, but Mr Kulai and the police party finally spotted the girl on Borivli platform.
Meanwhile, another passenger, Ravi Ingole, came forward to confirm the case at the police station.
Senior railway inspector Suresh Bhalekar, who is in charge of the Borivli railway station, was most helpful. He briefly
interrogated me, Mr Kulai and Mr Ingole, a policeman-turned-private security guard. As Wednesday’s first train to Churchgate
left Borivli station, inspector Prabhakar Patole recorded our statements. "We will register a case under Section 376 which
provides for ten years’ rigorous imprisonment. But you will have to appear in court,‘’ Mr Bhalekar said.
While Mr Ingole reached platform no. 5 to take the first Virar train, Vasant, a 27-year-old who works as a manager in a tea
stall, and I parted with a promise to meet at the session’s court.
Seated in a corner of the police chowkey was the young girl, who was eating a vada-paav' supplied by the police constable. The platform was strewn with bundles of the morning newspapers, chronicling the destiny of We the People’.
That story is sick… plain sick. These would be the same people who would watch someone drag a dog to death behind a car. They sure are heros now… they turned the guy in to the police after he was done. That girl will live with the trauma from this for the rest of her life, and they ‘promise to show up in court’ that’s such a help to her. They should be held accountable for letting it happen.
When I think about what I would do in situations like this, I’m always reminded of a line from JULIUS CAESAR, by Shakespeare. I don’t rembember it verbatum, but it simply goes something like, “a coward dies a thousand deaths while a brave man dies but once”. Sometimes it is absolutely better to risk your own personal safety than to have to live with yourself for allowing a hideous injustice to take place.
Police crowd out individual’s contributions to help others out. India is a very socialist country and all aspects of society are controlled by the government, people helping out others may well be arrested for making the situation more dangerous and harder to control. Deffending your self in India can get you thrown in jail, let alone helping someone else.
I guess it helps to understand the situation if what was said about helping out getting you in legal trouble. Being raised where I have been (not India), I know that I couldn’t sit by and watch, no matter what the consequence. Plus if the situation is 5 onlookers to the engaged parties, then I’m sure the 5 onlookers can come up with a good enough story to cover you. I would rather live with myself in prison knowing that I stopped that son of a bitch than live the rest of my life in another kind of prison burdened with the guilt of not stepping up. I think it aggravates the situation that she was handicapped as well.
It’s amazing, isn’t it when you think that in many ways, India is improving by leaps and bounds. If you take a look at the contributions they’ve made in the way of internet technology or computer technology, India is doin’ mighty good. And their movie industry is awesome (in terms of revenue for that country), But social aspects? It sucks. Women are still considered way, way below second class citizens there. That poor, poor girl -while these idiots will have to live with their cowardice - this girl will have to LIVE with this event, trauma, emotional shock for the rest of her life and also knowing that she “wasn’t worth it” for others to help her. Goddamn them all.
what kind of sissy, worse yet - what kind of group of sissies lets a drunken asshole rape an innocent little girl? They look to me like pure E-Men - Estrogen men. I suggest they get a dick real quick, and start enjoying the wonders of T. In a situation like this U should step up and beat the crap out of anyone who thinks they can do something cruel and get away with it because everybody’s too busy ignoring whats going on. I would like to see anyone deserving of it to be taught a lesson -rough the bastard up, or simply restrain him ( hey with a group of 11, u could be dwarf sized skinnies, u still outnumber the bastard). It seems to me the E-Men would also be too scared to step up if he decided to kill her after he was finished for fear he would kill one of them as well. I just changed my mind. They’re not Men , so Ill just call em E-things
I think Patricia will back me up on this one, but I find calleing them ‘E-men’ offensive. Every ounce of estrogen in my body would have been on that guy’s ass if I had seen this happening. No, I’m not superwoman, but knocking a drunk guy off a 14 year old who is trying to get away is not exactly an impossible task. Let’s just agree that the on lookers are sub-human.
Rival newspapers have reported that a policeman caught the guy after he got off the train on the next stop, and summoned the witnesses.
Regarding the girl. Here’s a link about how the girl is recovering: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ articleshow.asp?artid= 19586816&sType=1
Meanwhile the criminal has threatened to do outside, and lots of people (now this is where it gets weird) are worried about that.
Regarding the criminal getting indicted, don’t even think about it. Only 3 per cent of reported crimes result in conviction. Part of the reason is that delay in court drives people away. But the lawyers are not concerned and are instead demanding vacations (our Supreme Court works for only 180 days a day, in case you wanted to know)
Many articles on this problem have been written including this one: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ articleshow.asp? artid=19292343&sType=1
But somehow the legal community hasn’t been shamed into action.
It would be unfair to criticize Indians in particular over this case. There was, if my memory serves me, the Genovese case in NY, where a woman was gang raped in front of passerbys who did nothing. They just did not want to get involved. Studies have been done comparing how likely strangers were likely to aid strangers, and large cities score very low. Small town people did not hesitate to ask people who appear to be in need if they needed help. It appears to be a human nature issue that needs to be reformed, as more and more people live in large groups.
That is disgusting! Disgusting on the part of the guy who committed the crime and on the onlookers who sat there and watched. I could understand if he had a gun pointed at the onlookers, then it would be best to find more help. Or maybe if there was a gang of people committing the crime. But if it was one guy and several onlookers, they should have done something. I can’t believe the stuff that happens. And it doesn’t have to be in India. This kind of thing happens all over the world. To me, rape is the worst possible crime ever. I hold it higher than murder. And I think rapists deserve death penalties. I would absolutely kill someone if they ever raped my girlfriend, friend or family member. A real T-man would have offered assistance, even if in fear of his own safety.
Nate Dog,
While I agree that rape is indeed a heinous crime and should afford a punishment equal to the crime, what would a rapist do if he knows the penalty for his crime is death and that dead men tell no tales. Survey says: kill the victim. Its sad but something to think about when considering punishment for crimes like these.
I did not read the other responses because I just felt the need to respond.
Middle-class sensibilities had nothing to do with it. The author was just looking for an excuse, an excuse as to why he, along with the others, just sat there and watched someone who could not defend herself get violated.
You ask what a T-man would do? You know the answer. This isn’t a morally ambiguous situation where someone is asking if a verbal insult was enough to warrant physical retaliation. THis was an attack on someone helpless, and these people chose to just sit there and watch and listen. THis was an attack on a child, and no one bothered to help. This is not just “sad” – this is sickening.
As I said, you know what a T-man would have done. You know what any man worth his salt would have done. He would have done the right thing.
It is incidents like this that make me ashamed to be human. To inflict such torment on a fellow person (especially a child) is about the most reprehensible act possible.
Sure, it’s easy to be an armchair QB, but to be on the side of right is more than option, but an obligation.
I only wish that we could all learn a little lesson from the Heros of United Airlines flight #93. They made me feel proud once again.
This is actually a psychological phenomenon. I forgot what the name of it was, but it comes from a murder in New York. There was this party and a guy walked in and stabbed someone to death in front of like 100 people, all of whom just watched and did nothing. When they were asked about it, they all said they thought that someone was going to do something so they just stood there. The more people there are, the worse it is supposed to be. I know I once saw a guy get jacked by four and hit the ground, needing to go to the hospital. As they ran off, nobody was running across the street to pick this guy up. It took a good 15 seconds before the guys right next to him to pick him up.
As far as what a T-man would do, he would obviously step in and do some serious ass kicking. See, a T-man knows he’s a leader, a step above the rest. He doesn’t need to show it off, but he knows. He’d feel that it was his responsibility. It probably would be easy for any of us to just wait by, that’s why whenever I get on a plane or go into a dangerous area, I tell myself that I will do something in danger. Kinda’ prep my mind.