As I see the jubilant faces of the mob celebrating the gunning down of the accused four in the Disha incident, it makes me wonder, is this what we have come to as a society where the Police resort to such forms of “justice”& we cheer them? the same Police who are supposed to be the upholders of law & order clearly flout them & bow down to popular opinion & mete out their own brand of justice. The same police who had the gall to ask the victims father inappropriate questions & made him jump through hoops in the name of “jurisdiction”, when he came to register a complaint? if the Police themselves circumvent the judiciary & serve as the judge, jury & executioner , it only points to their lack of faith in due process of law & the very system they serve. This begs us to ask a very important question, how broken is our current justice system that the police themselves didn’t have the patience to wait till the law take its own course? if so, how can we assure a common man/woman that he/she will be delivered justice (in other cases & instances) as our constitution intended it to? our cheering of such acts by the Police will also put us in a precarious position where our need for justice won’t be incumbent upon the integrity of the institutions put in place by our founding fathers but upon the whims & fancies of certain (police) personnel who might think they’re above the system that they serve there by leaving us to their mercy, mercy which can be easily manipulated with the right incentives . It’s also funny that the scythe of “justice” swings swiftly when the perpetrators are of a low social standing, wonder why the police never gunned down the affluent & the politicos who stand accused & in some instances guilty of similar crimes? (29% of our current members of parliament face rape charges)

To all the people celebrating that justice has been served, let me remind you that Justice is retribution carried out for the betterment of the society as a whole, Revenge is retribution carried out to make few people good and/or vindicated, so please don’t commit the mistake of confusing revenge for justice, they can never be the same. People might be under the assumption that such acts of “justice” following the precept of “Lex Talionis” or “The Law of Retribution” might bring down sexual assault incidents down but if you take a look at the statistics, you’ll see that in countries where such forms of justice is served, the percentage of rape incidents are only marginally lower (3.65%) when compared to India (4.4%) . what needs to done is a systemic over haul within both the public & private spheres. The government should commit to implement Justice Verma’s report in it’s entirety, fill up the vacancies in police & judicial department, setup fast track courts to expedite the cases concerning sexual assault & when it comes to the private sphere, children should be taught the meaning of consent right from their kindergarten days, awareness centers should be setup in schools & colleges & PLEASE stop encouraging movies where stalking & teasing of women is normalized & glorified (looking at you Ismart Shankar).

Let this whole ordeal be a grim reminder to all of us that we live in a desensitized society & that we should be asking ourselves everyday about how one should stay kind & adhere to tenets of basic decency & humanity in the face of relentless barrage of temptation, instant gratification, ignorance, self righteous indignation, hypocrisy & apathy.

Has Cyberabad Police Commissioner V.C. Sajjanar once again delivered ‘instant justice’ in a case of a heinous crime against women?

People on social media started discussing this after all the four accused in the brutal gang rape and murder of a young veterinarian were gunned down by the police early Friday near Shadnagar town, about 50 km from Hyderabad.

After the shocking crime on November 27, a section of people have been demanding Sajjanar to deliver justice as he had done in the past while serving as the Superintendent of Warangal district in undivided Andhra Pradesh.

It was on December 12, 2008 that the police had killed all three accused in an acid attack on two girl students in Warangal.

The official had then claimed that the accused S. Srinvas Rao, Potharaju Harikrishna and B. Sanjay were killed when they attacked policemen while trying to escape.

The incident had occurred near Mamnoor hillock, on the outskirts of Warangal, where they had reportedly hidden the material used to target the two engineering students.

Though police had claimed that it opened fire in self-defence, it was believed that it acted to quell the public outrage triggered by the crime.

The then Congress government headed by Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy had come under criticism for ensuring protection to women.

Human rights activists, however, had slammed the government and the police for ‘extra-judicial’ killing.

After the November 27 incident, Cyberabad Police had come under flak for its handling of a missing complaint lodged by the victim’s family, about two hours after the she spoke to her sister over phone stating that she was stranded near the Outer Ring Road and was frightened.

The victim’s family alleged that the police wasted a lot of time over jurisdiction issue and responded four hours later.

Three policemen were later suspended by Sajjanar. The Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of 1996 batch was supervising the investigations into the horrific crime. He had constituted various teams to probe the case.

Sajjanar, an official of the rank of Inspector General of Police, took over as the Commissioner of Cyberabad in March 2018.

One of the three commissionerates in Greater Hyderabad, Cyberabad covers the Information Technology hubs of Hitec City, Gachibowli and other key clusters on the outskirts of the city.

Sajjanar, who earlier held key positions in undivided Andhra Pradesh and subsequently in Telangana, was also believed to be instrumental in killing of Maoists in encounter.