Targeting young girls : Minds of retards :: Now get them !
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: September 08 2020 -

Manipur certainly does not need this at this point of time when everyone, repeat everyone, is reeling under the COVID-19 pandemic and it will need more than tough talks from the Chief Minister to set things straight.

Straight as in getting the culprits arrested and not straight as in ensuring that such crimes do not recur in the future for this would need something much more.

Yet at the same time it also stands that swift and heavy penalty can go a long way in minimising such crimes in the future.

What happened to the young girl at Mayang Imphal on September 1 and her subsequent death the following day may be said to be the cumulative result of such crimes in the past where the guilty were not seen to have been punished accordingly.

Justice delayed is justice denied is a line that comes to mind here and the delay could be due to many reason, chief being the failure to build a strong prosecution and in the long process it takes to build the case, many incriminating evidences could have been lost.

This could be one reason why Manipur saw the emergence of numerous unidentified crusaders who did not believe in the long and cumbersome legal journey but delivered what they thought was instant justice.

Same is the case with the idea of mob justice, when people take the law into their own hands and target the houses of suspects.

Just how and why did such a trend emerge in the first place is a lesson which successive Governments down the years should have studied but unfortunately the present is more than enough indication that no one has deemed it fit to study this point.

On the other hand it was encouraging to hear the Chief Minister assure the people that chargesheets in the murder of the girl child would be filed within two months time and one only hopes that this declaration was made not to play to the gallery but was a statement delivered to show that the Government means business.

Manipur has no place for retards who do not hesitate to target young girls and maybe even satisfy their lust.

This is the line that should be conveyed when justice is delivered and it is with this line that the police should be set to work to track down the cold blooded murderers and treat them the way they deserve.

On the other hand, what happened at Churachandpur on September 4 should be more than clear that it could not have been the handiwork of some rag tag army of desperadoes.

The Government must be working on this premise too, for it is not just some desperadoes who can lay their hands on a gun or two, dog cash replenishment agents and then scoot off with Rs 1.5 crore after shooting to death an agent who was also a security guard of the SBI Cash Replenishment Agency.

The daring daylight robbery, the shooting which killed one agent and the smooth disappearance with Rs 1.5 crore of stolen money is a job which no Tom, Dick or Harry could have carried out that easily.

A point which must have registered in the consciousness of the police and this is what makes it all that more disturbing, given that there are times when it becomes extremely difficult to read the line that divides the plain criminals/gangs and those who may have taken up the gun under some high sounding slogans.

This has often been the case in Manipur and remember Churachandpur is not exactly known as a place where gangs can thrive.

Mayang Imphal and Churachandpur.

Two unrelated incidents but nevertheless which would have shaken the conscience of everyone.