What Are These Men Made Of ??

Newspaper reading has been one of my favourite and enjoyable morning activities for as long as I can remember. My father used to read a lot and he always insisted that we read the newspaper to be aware of whats happening around us.  Now when I understand how much of a difference reading ( of any kind) makes to one’s life, I silently thank my  father for his wise words. But of late I’m shocked at what I get to read the most in newspapers — Rape, rape and rape!!! The newspapers are brimming with the news of rape incidents here, there and everywhere. When I see the headlines I wonder where’s the nation heading to? There were incidents of rapes earlier also and it was generally women in twentys, thirtys and so on. Some perverts had tried to rape women in seventies and eighties which was shocking and ghastly. Now they’ve crossed all heights of shamelessness and barbarism and have started targetting small babies–sometimes one year old, 18 month old, its really unbelievable. Everytime I think of it, only one thing comes to my mind. How could they? How could anybody do such things–don’t they have a heart with conscience or a mind with feelings? Are they not normal human beings like you and me?

The other day when I read in the newspaper about the 5 year old child from Gandhinagar Delhi, I was shocked beyond expression. No words can express our disgust and horror. Again in Seoni (Madhya Pradesh) a four year old’s rape followed on the heels of the Delhi case. These two cases made one point clear– that the culprits were known to the victims. In the other cases that we have seen also, the culprits are mostly known people– may be a family friend, a neighbour, a cousin or an uncle. The innocent children trust people they know like they would trust their own parents.

When the Nirbhaya case happened there was a national uproar asking for death sentence for these people. If the government had taken a drastic step and showed the public that such crimes are not tolerated, I think it would have instilled some kind of fear in the minds of these criminals. But just keeping them in the jail has not achieved anything. Nirbhaya’s case was the first of its kind which exhibited utmost cruelty and never in our wildest of dreams did we think that such a thing is going to be repeated again. But, right after that so many incidents have been reported almost everyday that one cannot help wondering if it has given new ideas to these animals.

I strongly feel– like 99% of women in India are feeling right now– that all rapists should be hanged to death without any mercy, irrespective of culprit’s age. If one is adult enough to get himself into this, then surely he’s adult enough to be punished without any exception. As of now it’s being thought that if the victim dies after the assault, then it should be death sentence which means telling people–its ok to rape but don’t kill !!! Real nonsense, I think. A criminal in such cases must be given the ultimate punishment without waiting for someone to die because what a woman goes through at that time is nothing less than death. Its both physical as well as mental torture. If they are not punished properly how will the others like them learn lessons?

One thing that we all have noticed apart from the fact that the offender is generally a known person, and most of the the time they all come from lower strata of the society. Again it does not mean that the high and mighty and literate people don’t do such things. But yes, the ratio definetely is very different. I don’t want to get into why they indulge in such heinous acts. Whatever be the reason, it does not call for such acts of cruelty and barbarism, total animal like behaviour. In this age when these men are raping their own daughters and relatives we cant even say, don’t they think of their mothers, daughters or sisters when they are at their worst behaviour, spoiling many a lives.

I really wonder what are these men made up of???