Rape, the new normal in UP

The media takes it up when nothing else is happening, the police waits for something to happen before they act, politicians weigh the pros and cons of all that has happened, assess the vote bank impact and then act.

Rape in Uttar Pradesh is now considered “routine”, and no longer shocks the people.

“Ab yeh sab routine ho gaya hai. Aap log (media) bhi react karna band karo (Now all this has become routine, you guys should also stop reacting),” said a senior police official on Wednesday.

A recent average of 10 rape cases are being reported every day and, perhaps, a much larger number is going unreported, which is why the police treat it as “routine”.

The media splashes the story and sustains it only till the next incident takes place. “The story can be sustained only if we have visuals. We cannot run ‘dry’ stories for long,” admitted a senior reporter in a national TV channel.

The government, for its part, does not go beyond issuing a stern statement warning the cops and offering compensation to the victim. Their responsibility is then over. No representative ever visits the victim once the din dies down, and there are no efforts for rehabilitation.

The family members of a young girl, who went missing on her way to school in February, and whose body was found five days later in a semi-decomposed state, have lost their will to fight for justice.

“The police said she had died due to excessive bleeding, but not a drop of blood was found at the site. The cops arrested four men, two caddies and two rickshaw pullers, who said that they had sex with the dead body because my girl was already dead when they found her. The police, till date, have not told us who actually kidnapped her, raped her, killed her and then dumped her. We have reasons to believe that some influential persons were involved. After the initial frenzy, the media also backed off,” said a family member.