In the recent molestation incident at Rampur, UP on 22nd
May, 2017 a large group of 14 men, including one minor, cornered two
young girls and subjected them to horrifying and degrading sexual
violence and intimidation. The perpetrators were so fearless and
boisterous they even dared to film the entire incident and circulated
the video. It subsequently went viral leading to large scale social
protest. The police took swift action, filing ‘suo moto’ cognizance with
most of the men identified and arrested.
While the investigations are on, our
shores have till now not witnessed this kind of unprovoked savagery from
men as young as 14. I, as an ordinary citizen of the country, am
forced to ponder the inspiration for this bestial act which has an eerie parallel with similar mass sexual assault games or gang-rape games emerging from the Arab countries
and recently from the European continent. In a world of internet and
connected social media it would not be too far-fetched to conjecture
that these boys have probably viewed videos of similar incidents from
Egypt, Sweden, Germany and Europe and thus got influenced to brazen it
out on our shores.
Organized
mass sexual assault made its appearance in the modern times in 2005 in
Egypt when hundreds of women were assaulted while protesting at
‘Egyptian Constitution Referendum’ by a group of agents who also came to
be known as ‘Black Wednesday’. ‘Taharrush Jinsi’ is the term used for sexual harassment in Egypt and
has its roots in medieval practices wherein a large gathering of men
circle a female victim, while the outer fringes work to deter potential
witnesses and rescuers, the innermost circle will take turns to lift,
carry, grope and subject the victim to all kinds of sexual violence and
violations.
Coming back to our shores, last week, it
would be truly interesting to know the source of their inspiration and
fearlessness. With swift police action in case of Rampur incident and
arrest of the perpetrators under SC/ST and Goonda act, It is heartening
to note the administration is taking the occurrence of such incidents
very seriously and also considering the application of the stricter
National Security Act.
It would be prudent for the police and
social organizations to take cognizance of this hitherto unknown method
of mass molestation and mob behavior on the Bharatiya sub-continent so
that they develop adequate laws and measures to arm law enforcers, young
women and the general populace against this evil practice. Inputs can
be taken from anti sexual Harassment brigades of Egypt and Europe to
develop specialized modules and police teams with know-how of methods to
be employed for self-defense and for extricating oneself and friends
when caught in similar situations.
Such incidents on Bharat’s shores where
the perpetrators belong to Islamic faith makes one wonder about the
degrading moral conscience of these young men towards women, especially
non-Muslim women. Such attacks indicate a deep seated social antipathy
and negative conditioning towards the female gender and their role in
society. It has been observed that these attacks in modern times are an
organized and vehement expression of misogynistic dominance where the
purpose of the male is to intimidate and punish the woman who dared to
step out in the streets. The idea is to send a social signal to restrict
the movement of women outside their homes thereby depriving the women
of their freedom to move, travel, work, upskill and partake in all
modern activities which are available to the general populace.
sabhar from hindupost.in
No comments:
Post a Comment