I sometimes wonder if news of rapes, gang-rapes, molestation, eve-teasing and stalkings too are optional or circumstantial for the media or PRESS to cover. Sorry, I know I too am from the same fraternity but can’t help asking when I came across this shameful incident. I did carry in my official news bulletin but honestly I too had no knowledge of the incident till I read this in a local vernacular PRESS and I thank the newspaper for atleast showing the guts to cover the news. If you ask me why am I so much sarcastic. The answer is simple, I saw the media and PRESS going overboard when Jyoti Singh Pandey was gang-raped and was subjected to brutality. She died due to the brutality.

Well, if you still wonder who is Jyoti Singh Pandey, then she is that hapless girl who was the first in her family to have studied and was aspiring to become a nurse… Still wondering? Not your fault as the media, fraternity, had called her by many names to market the story the next day – ‘Amanat’, ‘Damini’, ‘Delhi Brave Heart’, and ‘Nirbhaya’, the name that became cult and all then on call the poor girl who waned to survive by ‘Nirbhaya’.

Why I am raising the issue? Actually, few days ago a similar incident had taken place in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh. A scheduled caste minor girl was gang-raped on her way back home from tuition. Villagers found her body without proper cloths. She was dead. Not just this, iron rod was inserted in her private parts. The matter spruced up anger among the villagers and they demanded a probe. The doctors conducting postmortem prepared slides after videography after which the brutality was confirmed.

Her father who is a Shiksha Mitra member raised fingers at his neighbour Sujit Kumar. After initial probe, police nabbed Kumar under section 02 (murder), 376A (brutality), 34 (plan to kill). Mother of the victim who is a Asha worker was away on her duty.