IT'S HYDERABAD'S TURN NOW..........

Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata or then my very own city Hyderabad; women are far from safe and secure anywhere and agonisingly easy prey for the burgeoning ranks of sexual predators which are increasing at alarming levels.........
A 25 year old woman was brutally sexually assaulted by her 23 year old neighbour in Hyderabad's Amberpet area or locality after 10 pm on Saturday night, the accused Santosh, 23, was later arrested on Sunday after the timely and welcome intervention of a political party's local representative........
Taking her neighbour at face value and reposing her trust in hi, the above mentioned 25 year old housewife requested her neighbour to run some urgent errands for her on Saturday evening.........
Taking undue advantage of the fact that the victim was home alone, Santosh, an employee of a private firm in Amberpet's Tulasi Nagar area made a furtive attempt at forcing himself upon her and making her the target of his forced sexual advances..........
To his dismay, the victim proved to be of sterner stuff, she started screaming at the top of her lungs and soon managed to garner a crowd of locals, neighbours and well wishers who not only nabbed Santosh but also roughed him up..........
A local representative of a leading political party was also apprised of these developments and he not only led the victim towards the local police station a little after 11 pm on Saturday night, but also ensured that the police authorities had little or no choice other than registering cases against Santosh under Section 354 (making an attempt to sexually assault or outrage the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code..........
Santosh was subsequently arrested from a friends' house in the same area on Sunday morning thanks to the pressure exerted by the political functionary, but also produced before a judicial magistrate who duly remanded him to judicial custody.........

RACISM UNABATED..........

As if repeated instances of cold blooded murders, unprovoked assaults and sexual atrocities against students/young people hailing from the North East in the national capital were not enough to compound their miseries and make their existence on planet earth nothing short of a living hell; an instance of four men accosting and robbing a young man hailing from Manipur has come to light and once again highlighted the Delhi police's pronounced inability to curb the spate of crimes against them.......
Like they say every dark cloud does indeed have a silver lining and the silver lining in this instance came in the form of the Delhi police officials apprehending the robbers within four hours of the occurrence of the crime and recovering the stolen valuable from them...........
The above mentioned incident took place in the national capital's sprawling Nizamuddin area when the 20 year old Manipuri youth Vasomo Phong Sore made his way to a general store in order to purchase a mobile recharge cars after having dropped his sister at a nearby church late on Sunday evening..........
According to Delhi Police officials/sources four men since identified as Nadeem, Safiq, Alladdin and Wasim rudely stopped the above mentioned youth who was astride his motorcycle near the famous Nizamuddin Dargah, assaulted him snatched away his mobile phone and about 500 Rs. in cash and made away from the spot in great haste........
On receiving a written complaint from the victim, the SHO of the Nizamuddin police station immediately proceeded toi form a team that nabbed the four offenders within a short span of four hours thanks to the exhaustive descriptions provided by Sore and not only managed to retrieve the valuables stolen from him but quiet a few other articles belonging to other victim's of this marauding gang in the wee hours of Monday morning........
As I said or mentioned earlier this was one incident involving young people or persons from the north east that had a happy ending but a spate or epidemic of such incidents involving persons hailing from the north eastern part of our motherland have repeatedly exposed our national capital's racist underbelly and shed light on the Delhi police's pronounced inability to make these people feel safe, secure and welcome in the national capital.........
Unfortunately, the above mentioned problem is not a law and order one and has deeper and far reaching social and political ramifications as all of us; politicians and the common man need to do more than our bit towards ushering in a spirit of bonhomie and fellow feeling towards this long abused and maligned diaspora; let's all arise above racism and sectarianism and show the world that our Hindustan is definitely "SAARE JAHAAN SE ACHCHA" once and for all...........

EFFICACIOUS JUSTICE: KHAP PANCHAYAT STYLE..........

For all those apologists, bleeding hearts and self styled human rights activists who espouse the cause of khap panchayats and justify the existence and continuance of these self styled kangaroo courts; here's an instance of the miscarriage of justice and medieval barbarism that will not only make you cringe but also re-examine your continued support to them.........
A 22 year old man hailing from Rajasthan's Nagaur district was abducted and taken to a Haryana village against his will; he was then subjected to the vilest abuse, inhuman forms of subjugation, tortured and brutally beaten up at the behest of the village's khap panchayat which feels that it is above the law and hence unanswerable to anybody.........
The 22 year old youth/young man was abducted by a gaggle of men who owed him enormous sums of money, these man then led him to the Odhan Village in Sirsa district of Haryana state where he was caged like a wild animal, beaten, starved, tortured, humiliated, made to eat his own excreta and drink his own urine and last but not the least sodomised on multiple occasions..........
His sordid, pitiable and inhuman ordeal only came to an end when his long suffering family members traced his whereabouts, rescued him from the clutches of his tormentors/captors and finally lodged a complaint against these devil reincarnates with the local police..........
Four of the twenty odd accused identified as Shankar, Arjun, Dilip and Chhotu Nath were arrested by the local police authorities after a local court intervened on behalf of the long suffering victim and ordered their immediate arrest and incarceration.........
As is their wont, the local police is siding with the khap panchayat and tormentors of the victim by giving an entirely different and highly distorted version of events: saying that the allegations made by the victim and his family members could not be corroborated and is not supported by any witnesses hailing from the village in question........
According to sub-inspector Badri Lal, the investigating officer, the victim was not abducted from Rajasthan but only brought back from there by the men hailing from Odhan village as he had committed the supposedly heinous and unpardonable crime of having eloped with a woman hailing from the very same village, a claim vehemently contested by the victim and his family members who in turn brand the cop as "highly corrupt and immoral" and nothing more than a paid agent of the khap panchayat........
Vijendra Singh, the victim's lawyer however outrightly rubbishes and dismisses these absurd claims and says that the fact of the matter is that the 22 year old man gave Rs. 3 lakh to two men hailing from Odhan village in October last as part of a deal made to net him an ideal life partner hailing from the village.........
"Instead of making good their time bound promise, the two men made away with the above mentioned sum of money", Singh goes on to add........
The two men (Naths) failed to honour their commitment and the youth began clamouring for the immediate return of the sum paid to them, after due diligence and relentless pursuance, the Naths relented sometime in the middle of December or so and condescended to show him a nubile young woman who they claimed was his future life partner........
Satisfied that his long cherished dream of getting married to the young lady of settling down with the lady of his dreams was nothing more than a mere formality, the youth made his way back to his abode in Rajasthan but never ever made it there as he was abducted midway and subjected to indescribable tortures for the better part of three odd months, the now fuming lawyer concludes.........
Alleging that the police who are hand in glove with the accused have conveniently preferred to look the other way and bury the statements of more than a dozen eye witnesses residing in Odhan Village, Vijendra Singh declares that medical tests carried out on the victim by three different medical facilities have conclusively established the occurrence of sodomy and torture.........
" I will not only prove my case, but also ensure that my client's captors are given the maximum punishment applicable under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, Khap panchayats have been deemed to be ultra vires of the constitution by the Supreme Court and hence their diktats have no legal standing whatsoever", he signs off.........
I for one strongly believe that vote bank politics which are the primary reasons for the existence and continuance of these self styled kangaroo courts should be put on the back burner and buried six feet under for eternity, nothing on planet earth is more cherished and desired than basic human dignity and any organisation that compromises or then makes a mockery of the same should be incarcerated for good in the darkest dungeons of history where they rightfully belong..........

SEEMINGLY ELUSIVE JOB.........

The current government has not only left the Indian economy in a shambles but also done irrepairable damage to the job market (creation of new government jobs) across the public sector and given credence to the oft repeated dictum about one out of every three graduates twiddling their thumbs at home as employment opportunities are scarce, few and in far between........
Take the recent tragicomic situation of 40 post graduates making a beeline towards the secretariat in Chandigarh to apply for the much coveted job of a peon within the echelons or then should I say corridoors of power within the Punjab government.........
These much desired jobs would earn the selected candidates the "princely" sum of Rs. 6,200/- per month and what takes the cake is the fact that the Punjab government received more than 16,000 applications for the 21 odd post that needed to be filled up in the immediate future.........
Satish, a resident of Himachal Pradesh's Bilaspur district was one amongst the 16.000 plus applicants who turned up to be interviewed for the post of peon at the district courts located within sector 43 of the Punjab capital; Satish is a MBA and has been trying his luck in the job market for almost a year now.........
He certainly found himself in august company as Vijay a resident of Chandigarh's sector 33 also turned up to be interviewed for the same job on Thursday; Vijay is a B.Com degree holder and has been trying his fortune at the employment turnstiles for well over 20 months.........
One can attribute the craze for this humble governmental post to the unceasing quest for permanence and penchant for a government job that guarantees you a tenure of 30 odd years, but the irrefutable fact that many a BEd, BCA, B.Com, B.A., M.A. and MCA degree holders turned up for the interview indeed does not hold out much hope for a bright and rosy future.........
Incorrigible optimists might well celebrate the fact that the "dignity of labour" is the winner in a scenario that expects a selected candidate to have passed his class VIII exams with a modicum of comfort and have more than an acquaintance with both spoken as well as written Hindi and Punjabi.........
A smattering of English or then the inherent ability to make yourself understood in the queen's language might well prove to be the icing on the proverbial cake, but a chequered canvas where graduates who should be imparting computer skills to beginners and candidates who should be teaching others carting around tattered government files and serving endless cups of chai to their sarkari bosses not only raises eyebrows but is more than a definite cause for concern.........
As a BSc (IT) graduate and long time resident of Dadumajra candidly remarked, "look at the brighter side, it is a government job that guarantees you a sense of permanence and ensures that you take home your salary cheque on the last working day of every month; and most importantly it certainly beats the state of twiddling your thumbs and eternally hoping that you will be able to land a seemingly elusive job commensurate with your educational qualifications".........
So do not be startled or raise your eyebrows if you find yourself being served a cup of chai by a person in a peon's uniform who is better mannered and far more comfortable and fluent with the queen's lingo the next time you frequent the dark and dingy passages of the district courts in Chandigarh..........
As for the fortunes of the next union government that takes over from the present lot in May 2014, the less said the better; they will not only have to create job opportunities by the tonne but also ensure that the skill set of a MBA, BCA or then any other graduate who has qualified on his/her own steam after having duly competed against lakhs of others like him/her is not criminally wasted in discharging a peon's assigned duties.......

RAGING LIBIDOS AND SEXUAL PICCADILOES........

Politicians are certainly back to doing what they know best, forcing themselves on unwilling women folk as if doing so was their divinely ordained right...........
Jammu and Kashmir's health minister finds himself on the wrong side of a gun barrel after a subordinate posted as a block medical officer of Srinagar levelled allegations of molestation and improper conduct against him.........
The doughty woman doctor in question who supposedly is a close relative of a prominent separatist leader levelled charges of uttering sexual laden profanities, making crude/offensive sexual gestures/innuendos and making unsavoury advances that amounted to molestation and outraging her modesty against Shabbir Ahmed Khan a Congress Minister in the Omar Abdullah led coalition government in the presence of several high ranking police officials..............
According to the victim, the amorous minister summoned her to his personal chamber in Srinagar on the pretext of seeking minute details about the announcements pertaining to the state's health sector made by the union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad during his recent Kashmir sojourn..........
She further goes on to add/allege that she was interminably made to wait in a miniscule cubicle adjoining the minister's sprawling office and then savagely subjected to what she terms "sexual harassment of the most graphic and debasing kind"...........
Taking due cognisance of the lady doctor's written complaint, the Srinagar Police Officials than duly booked cases under sections 354 (assault or usage of criminal force on a woman with the express/sole intent of outraging her modesty and causing bodily harm) and 509 (act intended to either outrage or assault the modesty of a woman) of the Ranbir Penal Code (criminal statute in force within the hill state of Jammu and Kashmir).............
A First Information Report (FIR) duly listing the charges levelled against the minister concerned was filed at the state capital's Shaheed Ganj Police Station late on Thursday night...........
According to unconfirmed reports appearing in local newspapers and other sections of the media, the arrest of the marauding minister was imminent as the state police have issued non-bailable warrants against him..........
Incidentally, Shabbir Ahmed Khan is the third Congress minister to have fallen foul with the long arm of the law ever since the Congress-National Conference coalition government took the reigns of government into their "tainted" hands in 2009..........
First it was noted journalist Tarun Tejpal, retired Supreme Court Judge A.K. Ganguly followed in his footsteps and now a Congress minister, one wonders whether these notables have not heard of the existence of the supposedly draconian and stringent "Nirbhaya" law or then their libido simply prevailed over their better senses..........
Sexual piccadiloes of the "ministerial" kind...............

RACIAL PROFILING????

Now here's a judgement that indeed boggles the mind and provides your infinite grey matter with immense food for thought, what with the Supreme Court saying that nude and semi clad pictures are okay and pass muster as long as they do not pander to your "basic instincts" and arouse "unholy" desires.............
A graphic or rather titillating picture of either a nude or then semi clad woman cannot be termed as offensive or obscene as long as it does not have either the propensity or ability to arouse sexual passions in both your mind as well as nether regions, the learned judges of the Supreme Court have ruled in a recent judgement intended to uphold the widely abused right to freedom of speech and expression........
Quashing a two decade old case filed against the editors of the Telegraph and now defunct Sports World magazines, a two judge bench comprising of justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and A.K. Sikri opined that "a picture could only be termed offensive or derogatory if it is either suggestive of (depraved) mind and exclusively designed to arouse sexual passions or unbidden desires".............
Criminal proceedings were initiated against the then editors of the two above mentioned publications under the Indecent Representation of Women's Act after the two publications prominently featured nude photographs of tennis legend Boris Becker and his then love interest actress Barbara Feltus.............
Referring to the magazines that also carried Boris Becker's candid and heartfelt article about racial discrimination in his native Germany based on the colour or tone of one's skin, the learned judges remarked that "the photograph intended to convey an unequivocal and far reaching message about the aimlessness and futility of differentiating between two people on the basis of their skin's pigmentation and was certainly not intended to titillate or pander to one's sexual fantasies".............
They also went on to add that the picture also conveyed the message that "skin colour is a triviality in matters of the heart and love prevails above all forms of discriminations and racial profiling"............
One only hopes and prays that our wise and learned citizens who derive sadistic pleasure out of mouthing racial slurs and barbs at the drop of a hat will indeed take a leaf out of the learned judge's book and realise the irrefutable fact that hairstyles and the size and shape of one's eyes are mere trivialities and certainly not cause enough to snuff out a young man's life in it's prime..............

KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOUR.........

Acting like a knight in shining armour and coming to the aid of a woman in acute distress is certainly not without it's pitfalls and harassment at the hands of over zealous men in khakhi as this Noida resident realised much to his dismay and consternation.........
A call centre employee was allegedly abused, intimidated and finally molested by three men inside a Maruti Swift car right outside her office in Noida's sector 135 in the wee hours of Thursday.........
This macabre incident occurred when the said employee stepped outside her office with a couple of female colleagues in tow at around 2 am for a quick bite and that much desired cuppa of chai.........
In her statement made before the Noida police alleged that the three men sitting inside the above mentioned car started spewing venom and the filthiest of abuses the very minute they saw her and her female friends, they subsequently made a furtive attempt to drag me into the car but soon gave up and fled away from the spot in undue haste as soon as I raised a hue and cry by screaming at the top of my voice.........
The screaming and ranting by their supposed victim deterred the rogues inside in the car only momentarily; they happened upon the very same spot after about ten minutes or so and made yet another foolhardy and equally fruitless attempt to grab the woman and pull her into their car.........
Their second attempt however came to naught as the employees and other menfolk inside the refreshment stall rushed outside on hearing the victim's screams, vandalised the car and also roughed up one of the occupants somewhat before the occupants of the car sped away from the spot that had abruptly become too hot for comfort.........
One can put money down every time and wager a bet on the fact that the local police personnel will always favour the so called high and mighty in all such cases and register fraudulent and patently false cases against the perennially abused lower middle classes in an effort to assuage their higher ups and give one the impression that they are indeed hard at work.........
Lo and Behold!!!! the sector 135 police personnel remained true to form and registered cases against one of the employees of the refreshment centre for vandalising the car and disturbing the peace and compounded their insanity and inhumanity by detaining the very same person in the local police station for a few hours.........
They only relented and released the knight in shining armour Shekhar Chauhan after the alleged victim rushed to the local police station after being intimated about the startling developments on this front by the youth's uncle and refreshment stall owner Rishipal Chauhan........
" I reported for work at around 11:30 am as usual but was startled out of my wits when I was informed that Shekhar had been apprehended by the local cops and incarcerated in the lock up on trumped up charges of vandalism and causing damage to my assailants car".........
" The station in charge refused to accept my plea and register a complaint against the three men who attacked me and I had to literally run from pillar to post to get a FIR/complaint registered against my three wannabe rapists; my efforts in this direction only bore fruit after the Senior Superintendent of Police heard me out patiently and duly instructed the area police station personnel to register a FIR against the three men and immediately release Shekhar without any further ado", the flabbergasted woman concluded ...........
And people still continue to wonder why many well meaning folks like moi continue to clamour for the long delayed police reforms and cry ourselves hoarse about the immediate need to professionalise the police force and make it accountable to the common man for it's actions, quirks, high handedness, eccentricities and idiosyncracies..........