Rising crime graph against women : Erosion of social values
- Sangai Express Editorial :: April 8, 2013 -

Sit-in-protest at Singjamei on Dr Satyabhama's killing on April 06 2013:: Pix - Deepak Oinam

Not really the crime capital against women in the North East but the trend is disturbing. A 31 year old woman, Junior Research Fellow at RIMS, found dead under mysterious and highly questionable circumstances and this is not the first time and would not be the last one either.

In the past few years the crime graph against women has been rising. Just to recap a few instances.

On April 9, 2012, a 44 year old woman was found charred to death at Kakching Mahadeva Hills after she left home on March 25, 2012. A 16 year old girl, a class XI student of Kanglatongbi, was found dead under suspicious circumstances on May 17, 2012 while in the intervening nights of March 21 and 22 an Umorok trader from Nungleiband of Tamenglong district was gang raped at Irom Meijrao, after she was abducted from Keinou.

Sometime in 2011, a young girl was found brutally murdered at Cheiraoching in the heart of Imphal. These are some immediate cases that come to mind and in between there have been stories galore of women being raped, molested, killed and battered.

Telling the whole story in which women find themselves in society or are these cases just the tip of the iceberg, with many more other cases of harassment and torture going unreported and away from the media glare ?

A cause for concern. Says something significant about the gradual erosion of values in society.

Time for all to pool their resources and study how Manipur has come to such a pass that the other half of the population finds itself increasingly at the end of violence and harassment.

At the moment, an indefinite bandh is on to demand fitting punishment of the people responsible for the death of the 31 year old woman and while bandhs and street protests are not exactly the answer to the rising crimes against women, it is a way of pressurising the Government to do something positive.

It is an expression of the collective angst against crimes as horrendous as murder.

Circumstances leading to the death of the 31 year old woman are still sketchy. No answer yet on how she was killed either. No one has been picked up for questioning, at least till as late as the evening of April 7, 2013.

Investigators, the police in this case, must be working over time on whatever clues they might have zeroed in.

While booking the suspects and punishing the guilty should be the rallying point for the people, it would be in the fitness of things for the people as a whole to look beyond the murder of a woman and study the gradual erosion of values and ethics in today’s society.

A scary proposition it is to think that every time a woman steps out from her home or workplace lurks the danger of being targeted by some elements, who may go as far as snuffing out her life. Says something profound about a society which has failed to ensure the security and safety of womenfolk. It is this larger implications that should be studied.

Time for all to collectively come together and study how situation has come to such a pass. Something, somewhere is horribly wrong. The psychology of society needs to be assessed thoroughly.

A profile mapping of all the culprits who have been convicted of crimes against women here may go some way in helping all to understand how such a trend has emerged to define the society, vis-a-vis the position of womenfolk in all spheres of life.

A trend it is, for the death of the 31 year old woman was not a blip on the radar, not an exception, but something which Manipur has been witnessing routinely for the last few years.

Gender violence does not exactly go along with a place which gave the world the meira paibi movement and sets aside a day as Nupi Lan, annually.