Kathua rape case: A shattering open letter by an Indian woman

“It took the distressing and shattering rape case of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua to once again prove the fact that it isn’t the “provocative” dressing but the irredeemable perversion and diabolic beliefs that are the prime reasons for the increasing number of horrors in our country.

A few months ago, a little girl, belonging to a nomadic tribe in Kathua, was busy grazing her horses in a meadow when she was beckoned into a forest by a man. What followed was a grisly testimony of how inhumane can humans be. The child was forced to take sleeping pills, gang-raped for three days, and was finally strangled to death in the cruelest way possible.

With the facts being revealed recently, a national outcry has broken out demanding severe punishment be handed over to the rapists. The culprits, however, as in many cases, have been enjoying support from select groups.

While Nirbhaya’s shocker in 2012 threw the system into chaos, the latest case has left us naked in the light of hypocrisy and polarising belief systems.

The debates of ‘what’s wrong’ and ‘what’s right’ have once again started surfacing on our television sets. Numerous social media portals are being set ablaze with angry citizens venting their anger at the horrendous crime. Roads of the national capital are flooded with candle marches and placard displays. As we growingly get used to such scenarios, I, as a ‘daughter’ of this country, feel ashamed of how helpless and insecure the current society is turning out to be.

As many individuals, unfortunately, are becoming accustomed to reading about rape horrors in different parts of the country, the quote, “Criminals will not be spared, our sisters and daughters will get justice,” has become a mere formality of each rhetoric nowadays.

While the leaders remain occupied in the blame game, I would like to bring to everyone’s kind notice that it has been decades since the daughters and sisters have been waiting for justice to be delivered. Even today, our parents don’t feel safe when we stay out in the nights, our brothers do not let us meet their new male friends and our sisters don’t prefer venturing out alone during a New Year’s Eve.

We fear these actions will soon turn out to be societal norms. We dread pepper sprays and portable knives will be the only soul savers we can expect. As humans reach newer heights of barbarism, we worry the Nirbhayas will no longer hold relevance in our daily lives.

But again, with faith in law and a hope that humanity prevails in its faintest essence, we hope justice will be delivered to redeem our disfigured souls.”