Stories of weak prosecutions galore : Raining bails in the last few days
- Sangai Express Editorial :: July 19, 2013 -

Not exactly a down pour, but it has been raining bails in the last few days.

Within a span of three days, bails have been granted to 11 accused in different cases.

The Sangai Express has already had its say on matters relating to the bail granted to four of the seven persons accused in the Pallel drug haul case by the Special Court of the NDPS and this has been followed by chapter II of the bail story, where the rests, the other three have also been granted bail.

On the other hand, far away from the prying eyes of the media and the public, the four IRB personnel hauled up in connection with video taping a young couple in the nude and uploading it on the internet, which eventually went viral, and remanded to judicial custody on July 6 or 7 were granted bail on July 16.

Two very different cases, one related to drug trafficking or smuggling and the other related to posting nude pictures of a young couple on the net.

Yet a common thread runs through the two cases, which has come out in the bails granted. The rot in the prosecution, that is.

Anyone who had the opportunity to see the video clipping of the young couple, filmed by the IRB men would have been left disgusted.

Moral policing is not policing. This is the point which the men in uniform should understand.

And in ignoring their duty of policing, the IRB men non-chalantly donned the role of moral policemen.

This much was evident from the video clippings. An open and shut case, it should have been.

Anyone who has seen the vide clipping would have taken note of one of the IRB men in full view barking out orders and subjecting the two young people to humiliation of the most extreme.

Enough evidence for the prosecution to build up a strong case. That this did not happen is there for all to see in the bail that has been granted to them.

A couple of days in judicial custody for such a heinous crime and nothing can become more objectionable than this.

Why did the prosecution fail to build up a strong case in the face of such hard hitting evidences ? A case of protecting members of their own tribe ?

The wheel of justice cannot run like this. Low conviction rate has often been cited by prominent jurists across the country, for the rising crime graph against women.

Obviously such a line of argument has not caught on with the people who matter here. This is not only worrying but also unacceptable.

Capturing nude pictures of young girls and boys and posting them on the internet and getting bail or walking out free after spending a few days in judicial custody and the message that has been rung out does not portend well for society at all.

An open and shut case, it should have been, especially when the face of one of the IRB men is so prominently seen in the video clip.

Apathy and disservice to their duty is writ large on the four accused managing to get bail, for want of a strong case prepared against them.

The Churachandpur episode should be seen beyond four rogue men in uniform, but about the rot and gradual decay of the institution of agencies which are there to police the people.

It was not only four men in uniform ‘forgetting’ to differentiate between policing and moral policing, but is also about the sadistic pleasure that they derived from catching the young couple in their birthday suits.

In the face of the repeated failure of the agencies concerned to seriously go about with their task of preparing charge sheets and reducing the understanding of prosecuting to routine paper work or pushing Government files, it is time for the people to come out on the streets and protest.

Time for the people of Churachandpur to come out and demand to know why the prosecution so abysmally failed in preparing a charge sheet that should have nailed them.

Men in uniform getting bail in a couple of days for uploading nude pictures of a couple in a country where young girls have been arrested for updating a comment and liking it on social sites, like Facebook (The Maharastra story after Bal Thackeray passed away) tells the story of law enforcing agencies serving their political bosses and not the country.