From: amit@alice.att.com (Amit Gupta)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Rapists on the payroll of CPI(M).
Date: 24 Jul 92 15:09:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: alice.23303
Reply-To: amit@alice.UUCP ()
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T, Bell Labs

In article <1992Jul22.212323.24559@ctr.columbia.edu> me@comstore.uark.edu (My Account) writes:
>In article <23280@alice.att.com> amit@alice.att.com (Amit Gupta) writes:
>> In article <22JUL199210221297@vax2.concordia.ca>  
>debchat@vax2.concordia.ca (DEB CHATTERJEE) writes:
>> :In article <1992Jul21.144822.21157@engr.uark.edu>, me@comstore.uark.edu 
>> :(My Account) writes...

 [ D E L E T E D]

>Amit Gupta, first of all by public trial I meant a publicized trial,  
>conducted fairly following due process. But given the fact that a girl was  
>raped in front of a standing crowd in broad day light, I don't think that  
>there much controversy regarding the guilt of those hooligans. I don't  
>know if you have a wife, a sister or a mother, but the very fact that I am  
>a women and have grown up in Calcutta, I can feel the pain in every cell  
>of my body. Where is your human rights concern for the girl, whose body  
>and life was abused by a bunch of anti-social? 
>
> It does not take a rocket scientist to know that these hooligans had some  
>sort of political protection that made them so confident of themselves  
>that they could do such a crime without fearing anything.
>
> Human Rights!!! You can talk about it as long as people feel that there  
>is something called justice. If killers of Debjani Banik could evade death  
>penalty by bribing upto High Court and Supreme Court, I don't know if the  
>notion of human rights is very much relevant in our society. I don't think  
>you really understand where it hurts to even hear this kind of news. CPM  
>govt. has been operating like virtual autocrats since there is no viable  
>alternative to them. Cong(I) are no better as we all know. The ills of the  
>society are so deep rooted that mere changing of parties will probably not  
>change the situation very much.-- Aditi Sen 

The above posts raises a number of points, and I will try to address them
one by one.

1. Guilt & Identity : While there may not be any doubt ("controversy") 
 that the rape did take place, that does not imply that the identity of
 that  criminals has been established. My prime objection was to the idea
 of "police department should immediately conduct a public(ized) trial,
 and give life imprisonment without bail". We must understand that only 
 the judiciary is authorised to conduct trials and to decide the sentence;
 and attempts to subvert this process can only be bad for the society.

2. Wife-sister-mother, woman, every cell in the body : Whether I have any 
 female relatives or not is irrelevant to the current discussion, IMHO. I
 think i do understand your emotions on this issue, but we must understand
 that we have to think with our heads, and not with our hearts.

3. Human rights of the victim : This point has been raised many times; e.g.
 while discussing police atrocities, while discussing atrocities in Punjab
 & Kashmir & the North-East etc etc. I would only say that I am in no way 
 defending the rapists; however, it is possible that in our zeal to punish
 the crminals and to "teach them a lesson", we may end up prosecuting, and 
 convicting soem other innocents. is that acceptable?

4. Rocket scientist, hooligans, police protection etc etc : I wish I could
 say " Yes. I agree 100%". But, have you considered the possiblity that the
 hooligans can operate with fairly local protection (down to the local thana
 level); thus, the presumption of guilt on the part of CPM cadres is not
 fully justifiable. once again, i must point out that i am not from calcutta,
 nor am i a fan of CPM; just that i feel that the public (or popular)
 opinion is not always (or often enough) the truth. 
 
5. Debjani Basik, relevance of human rights to our society : I am not familiar
 withthe case of Debjani Basik; i am in no position whatsoever to comment on
 the issue. The above post accuses the High Court & Supreme Court justices of
 having taken bribes to reduce the punishment of the accused in that case. i
 dont think that any proof was given to support the accusation. pl note that
 i am *not* saying the the justice system is perfect (or even close). however,
 we must have a level playing field : our system is based on presumption of
 innocence; as long as it stays that way, there will be countless criminals
 who will escape because the evidence was not conclusive enough. should it 
 be changed to  "presumption of guilt, unless proven otherwise"?

6. CPM, CongI, no alternatives :  This is democracy. not the perfect system;
 probably not even the best system. we opted for it; if there are better 
 suggestions, pl let us know.

 Well-reasoned follow-ups welcome. Flames will be ignored, as usual.

 -amit
 Amit Gupta
 amit@research.att.com


Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian