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If Uber Can be Held Responsible for Rape, Then Why Not the Badals?

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On the last day of April, India woke up to yet another horror story – the death of a 13-year-old girl who had been molested and allegedly pushed out of a speeding bus. She wasn’t alone in her misfortune. She was pushed out of the bus along with her mother while her 14-year-old brother looked on in horror. The mother was somewhat lucky. She survived. Her daughter did not.

The incident took place on Wednesday evening. The 35-year-old woman said the harassment began from the moment she, along with her daughter and 14-year-old son, got on the bus, according to NDTV. “The conductor refused to give my daughter a ticket,” the NDTV report quoted the woman as saying.

A Times of India report states that when the bus neared the Moga, the assistant bus conductor allegedly began sexually assaulting the woman and the conductor sided with him. Their demands to get off the bus went unheeded as the driver increased speed. The last thing that one of the passengers, a horticulture official witnessed was the women screaming for help as they fell.

This story is chilling on so many levels. Not just because a young girl travelling with her mother and brother was sexually assaulted and possibly murdered in broad daylight. It’s also that a busload of people stood by and watched the entire drama unfold.

But worst of all, the bus service, Orbit Aviation, turned out to be one where one of the partners was the Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab, Sukhbir Badal, son of the CM, Parkash Singh Badal. It therefore, came as no surprise that within hours, that the DGP of Punjab, Sumedh Singh Saini ruled out questioning of the owners.

“Law does not permit that we take action against a person who even does not have any knowledge of crime,” Moga SSP J S Khehra said.

True, a sizeable amount of responsibility rests upon the actual perpetrators. But does it justify letting the Badal family completely off the hook?

Was an investigation launched to see if these buses were supposed to be plying on these roads, whether due diligence was followed with the drivers in question, with a background verification and a ‘gender sensitive’ training? After all, did we not all demand the same when the Uber rape happened? Did we not bay for their blood citing that the owners are as responsible for the issue as the driver if they did not verify background properly. We forced an international organisation to admit to its errors, somewhat.

Yet why are we silent when it comes to the Moga case? Why is the law sitting back relaxed, doing nothing? Not only is the law protecting the Badals – the first family of Punjab, but we, the people also are apathetic towards the issue because favouritism is to be expected after all, in India.

The victim’s family has raised this issue, stating that the girl’s body would only be cremated after the Badals are booked, but they are fighting a losing battle anyway.

The only other source of noise so far has come from rival political parties who quickly saw an opportunity to score a point, forcing the Badal government to climb off its high perch and even deign to visit the family in hospital.

The BJP, so quick and vocal during the Uber case has remained predictably silent in the matter of its political allies. In fact, back then BJP MP RK Singh had even hinted at the possibility of implicating Uber as a co-accused in the rape case.

“Definitely it should be banned; also, Uber should be considered an accused. Uber is providing services, it has to take responsibility, and it should engage drivers only after verification. It is my view,” Singh had argued, while speaking to ANI. Home minister Rajnath Singh had gone on to ask all states to ban Uber cabs.

Today they remain standing in the shadows. Only PM Modi has been consistent in his behavior, then and now – consistently silent.

Not only did both governments botch the chance to escape an embarrassing case, but by forcing the police to push it under the carpet, they have got an even bigger spotlight on them. As for the police, they missed the chance to open an investigation into the murky world of private transport services, a matter for growing concern since the Nirbhaya episode.

A point in evidence here being that two days after the Moga case, another woman was molested in a private bus in Punjab, and again the driver and conductor looked the other way.

The entire attitude of the Badals and the Indian government in this episode is possibly best summed up by what Punjab’s Education Minister Surjit Singh Rakhra said about the girl’s death, “Nobody can stop accidents. Whatever happens does so by God’s will. We can always meet with an accident.”

 

Image Courtesy: BCCL

 

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