Bengaluru voices anger over Kathua gangrape and murder

BENGALURU: Some took to the streets while several others expressed outrage on social media. But Bengaluru made it clear on Friday that inaction won’t be tolerated in the gangrape and murder of the eight-year-old in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir.
A group of citizens gathered at Freedom Park on Friday evening to protest the heinous crime. Several civil society organisations will meet on Saturday to discuss their protest plans for next week.

Advocate and member of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Bindu Doddahatti, said: “It is clear that the bar association which supported the accused is backed by the RSS and BJP. It was an organised crime and they wanted to drive out the minority community from the place.”

Bindu said such acts are perpetrated to create fear, adding the incident is political and needs to be condemned through the collective action of society.

Citizens and activists from various walks of life have criticized the incident and condemned the leaders who are making it a political issue. KS Vimala Kalagaru of Janavadi Mahila Sangha said she was shocked to see BJP leaders trying to defend the accused. “If responsible agencies like police and state government acted impartially, the issue wouldn’t have taken a political hue. An elected government should take a stand to protect its citizens’ rights and not allow such acts to acquire communal colour,” she said.

Sidharth, a student, posted on Facebook that it was shocking that such a crime was committed just to “get a communal message across.” “The shocking involvement of police officers in this case makes me lose my faith in the state...This case should be treated as a rarest of rarest case,” he wrote.

#MyStreetMyProtest

Arundhati Ghosh, executive director, India Foundation for Arts, urged her social media friends and other citizens to begin neighbourhood protests. Her Facebook post asking people to come out on their streets in protest on Sunday has been shared by tens of users.

“...We the Citizens of Bangalore on the 15th of April Sunday at 5 pm will stand at our own street corners across the city wherever we are, wherever we can at that hour (sic),” her post read.

Ghosh said citizens must come together to demand justice for the child and the Unnao rape survivor. “This is a call to raise our voices against those responsible for these atrocities and those supporting the perpetrators. Let’s organise. Let’s get our friends and neighbours together,” she said, requesting people to carry posters and later upload their protest pictures on social media with the hashtag #MyStreetMyProtest.