A woman in Jharkhand has killed her neighbour for trying to rape her five year old daughter. The woman was out of her home for work when the neighbour misbehaved with her daughter. When she returned, her daughter told her. In a fit of rage, she bludgeoned the man to death.
While it isn’t the prettiest of news to read, it is the best news I have read in a long while that contains the words “five year old” and “rape”, considering that the usual news to come out of Jharkhand involves stuff like “12 year old boy rapes 5 year old girl“, “5 year old girl raped and murdered“, “Neighbour rapes 5-year-old, victim made to wait five hours outside hospital“, “20 men gang rape 4 minor girls” and so on.
Is murder right? No. But I can’t blame the mom for doing it. I believe in non-violence, but a threat to my child is one of the few things that would probably lead me to violence with no regrets. Call it the “mama tiger” syndrome or whatever, but I cannot regret the lack of one child rapist in this world.
Parents of girls outside the insulated middle and upper classes live with a constant fear for their safety that does not get addressed adequately by those who insist they have no right to restrict their daughters. It isn’t merely about control, it is also about not wanting pain for their child. My maid in Borivli lived in a slum and often came to work with three daughters in tow because the few people she trusted were not available to look after them.
Child rape is on the rise. All rape is on the rise. In a country where a rape happens every seven minutes, courts are not resolving cases every seven minutes and that is the fact. Governments are not bothering to give a clear message that rape is not acceptable. What is a parent to do when a threat to their precious child lives next door?
Perhaps the male dominated thinking will sit up and take notice that a problem exists only when rapists get killed because they weren’t controlled.