This morning I came across news of a girl who was raped by 25 men of a village. The reason given for this heinous crime is particularly disturbing. According to the victim they wanted to change her uncle’s religion. Her uncle denied so they raped this girl in order to teach him a lesson. Do we really believe this is the motto behind disgusting crime committed by these men? If yes then read this, girl and her uncle’s religion were not same anyway. This girl is of the same religion as these revolting villagers and yet they assaulted this girl. Is she ever gonna recover? Though I hope she does but I know deep in my heart how close to impossible it would be considering only 2 of these men are given life imprisonment, 12 are given a few years’ punishment and rest are set free.

A few months back while traveling I purchased a book at the airport. This book was regarding a rape victim. Though based on author’s imagination, it painted the reality. This girl was raped when she was in college. She filed a case and after several hearings, the culprit was sentenced a few years’ imprisonment. This story revolved around this girl and author wrote how the behavior of her friends changed once they got to know about the horrible crime she went through. She could never really be in a relationship. People started judging her in all sorts of ways. She was always under a microscope or at least that’s how she thought she was being observed. She lost her way every now and then. Every blank canvas of her imagination painted that dark memory first.

Every morning newspaper is filled with minimum 2 cases of rape. Girls aged just a few months ( that’s right! Months..not even 1 year) are also being targeted by these hungry, mentally disturbed and disdainful “a black spot” on the name of men. They can justify this beneath contempt act for any reason(be it revenge, failed love story, an the influence of alcohol etc) but is there truly any justification for such an act?

If you google “Rape Victims” and browse the images trust me only an evil spirit will remain to its normal self. The images are so disturbing and news to which they refer are even more heart-wrenching. It makes me wonder is there nothing left to this world and only sadness prevails. Will we ever overcome the fear of being a victim? We can take karate lessons but along with it we’ll need Unagi lessons(remember a reference made by Ross in FRIENDS to unagi?) to sense when trouble is around us to plunge its bare claws so deep in our body that its scars will haunt us forever. But yes we must at least prepare ourselves to be able to defend when we do sense something is wrong.

We even got a minister making a remark so low when he was asked to comment on it that it filled everyone with shame. He justified rape by saying “Boys will be boys” Wow! I think even boys must have been terribly offended by this statement but rapists must have felt a lot better and probably one more justification got added to their list of reasons for committing such a crime.

As the law against this crime was made stronger, rapists have started being more creative in finding ways to escape. Only a rape is scarring enough but now a number of rape cases are being reported in which culprits try to destroy his victim’s privates by using any blunt object so as to “apparently” get rid of evidence left. Where is the humanity? Well, my question itself is wrong. How do I expect humanity from an inhuman who has drowned so low that he tormented an innocent just to satisfy his “disgusting quest of pleasure”.

To which direction are we steering are the ship named the world? Laws are being made strong to limit the number of rape crimes but rape cases are increasing in same proportion,  if not more.

I think one solution to the problem could be keeping an eye on our kid’s activities, teaching him the value of being respectful to every individual irrespective of gender, religion, caste, and color etc. We should plant seeds of values, humanity and respect for individual right from childhood so that the tree grows out to spread only happiness and not sorrow or torment. Also, we ensure not to hide our kid’s mistakes rather punish them to inscribe a well-known quote deep into his heart “No crime goes unpunished “. When there will be fear of being punished then the crime rate will decrease by a significant factor. Of course, this is just one solution. There could be a number of solutions based on innumerable observations made on the mental status of these culprits. One common observation seen in this part of the country is that these men do not respect women and think of them as objects on which they have a birth right to enslave. They think women were created by God to satisfy a man’s needs but now women are going out of control and trying to deny their duties. Talk about living thousands of centuries behind! Where do they get this logic from?

Every individual needs to contribute to making a change in society. We should ensure to look at rapist with hatred and not at rape victim. Society starts judging a rape victim by the time she was out when it happens, the clothes she was wearing, the tone she used while communicating, her being under the influence of alcohol and in some extreme cases the fight she gave to the rapist to escape caused her more pain. Why are we judging the victim? Are we so weak that we can judge already suffering party and not the real culprit?Why don’t we start focusing on the real problem?

Devils in the form of humans are making it hard to breathe for everyone in society. With ladies, the fear of rape is adding to this fear. Irrespective of her age this fear remains. We need to be united to fight this evil out of the world. We can wait for all we want for a superpower to help us out but until and unless we change our mentality and start planting seeds in our kids’ brains, no superpower will help us. We need to remember ” God helps those who help themselves”.

I would also like to urge to rape victims to keep their head held high. You did not do anything wrong. You were just at a wrong place at a wrong time. Don’t let anyone make you feel weak or fallen. Believe in yourself and follow your dreams. You have lost nothing. You are a survivor. I know it’s easy to preach than to follow but I know a survivor can do wonders if one decides to put a stop to sufferings and transfers the pain in creating something magnificent.

We are all beautiful and the only ugly person is that devil who makes an innocent human being suffer. He will suffer all his life. I pray to God to show these culprits and everyone with such low mentality light of knowledge. Amen!