Vishü Rita Krocha
Kolkata has been consistently placed at the top as far as safety for women is concerned. Until last year, it retained this title for the third consecutive year. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, the city had the least number of cognisable offences per lakh population, making Kolkata the safest city of India in 2022.
However, the recent horrific rape and murder of the Kolkata postgraduate medical student has changed all of these. The City of Joy will never be viewed with the same perspective again. The horrifying incident that sparked nationwide protest is a painful reminder that safety for women is still a distant dream.
The spirit of humanity deteriorates with every crime that comes to focus. It breaks the chain of peace that any society is striving to keep and threatens the hope of any peace loving citizen.
A society’s aspiration for peaceful coexistence diminishes in that very moment where a fellow human being has been denied the very right to live. A wrong of any kind is in itself a crime against humanity. From breaking the rules and laws of the land, to robbing a person’s freedom or killing somebody’s hope but the worst of them of all is “rape and murder”.
Especially, the severity with which the recent Kolkata story surfaced has left everyone shaken. What kind of human really inflicts so much cruelty and terror on another human being?
The gruesome rape and murder of the Kolkata trainee doctor has caught the attention of everyone across the country but unfortunately, there are several other cases that go unreported on a daily basis. Regardless of the fact that not every case gets the same kind of public attention, the sad reality remains that crime against women has become commonplace.
Safety for women as a whole has long been an issue of debate. But more than the discourse that ensues, it is a battle that women across India fights for, everyday. Crime against women is a fear that every concerned parent, friend or family has for his/her daughter and female counterpart because our women have never really felt safe in their own homeland.
What is freedom that a nation claims to have if it cannot provide for its citizens the most crucial part of being free, which is to be free from fear?
The dreadful and most shocking rape and murder of the Kolkata postgraduate medical student has generated more fear for the people of this country. And this is especially true for women who have hoped more than once that something as outrageous and terrible like rape would no longer have to fit into news headlines.
The fact that such a heinous crime has been committed against a medical doctor makes it even more unsettling. While a doctor's lifetime is invested in saving people's lives, they should really not have to fear for their own.
Initiating proactive steps to prevent rapes is long due and if the issue of rape is not immediately addressed and given the attention it has long deserved, then India will continue to shame itself as a country.
This is a guest editorial by Vishü Rita Krocha. She is the Publisher of PenThrill Publication and a senior journalist based in Kohima.
