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Savage mob-killing of three girls in Tamil Nadu..
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Shrikant has rightly put this on the IPI agenda. Mob-rule (which is always
sporadic) is rampant in many many places in India. The recent horrific
killing of three college-girls in a bus by an AIADMK mob is a case in point.
A seminar on mob-psychology is vitally important! -- followed by nationwide
education and propaganda on the subject.
I have myself been assaulted at IIT Kharagpur's gates by a mob last July. A
local politician had been killed by another in the town. A political mob
came into IIT and demanded its closure by bandh. Everyone capitulated.
I had vital work going on and insisted upon entering the campus to work, at
which point I was manhandled by one or two of the mob. I took the name of
the main culprit and reported it to our local police fifty yards away.
Nothing happened of course. The key fact I observed was that normal
individuals become absolutely savage as members of a mob.... as Dickens told
us in A Tale of Two Cities.
Subroto Roy.
-----Original Message-----
From: Shrikant <bawarchee@yahoo.com>
To: debate@indiapolicy.org <debate@indiapolicy.org>
Date: Tuesday, February 08, 2000 3:37 PM
Subject: Is this what politics has stooped to...
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>A cruel incident which sadly has been carried out by
>'Political Parties' trying to set their own rule to
>life and living...
>
>
> 'God! I couldn't even see her face one last time'
>
> She sat on the floor, staring vacantly, her
> dishevelled hair obstructing the tear-stained
> face.
>
> A man came over with documents for her to sign. She
> mechanically put pen to paper. The moment she came to
> know that the signatures were for Rs 200,000 as
> compensation from the government, her eyes welled with
> tears.
>
> "Rs 200,000 for my daughter! God! I couldn't even see
> her face one last time. Did I give birth to her for
> this?" she sobbed.
>
> Kasi Ammal teaches at a corporation school in Madras.
> Comprising husband Kesava Chandran, four daughters
> and a son, hers was a happy family. Till Wednesday.
>
> Her daughters were all good at studies. The eldest,
Uma
> Maheswari, is a research student in microbiology in
> Madras University. The second, Thripura Sundari, is
> doing her post-graduation. And Hemalatha was a
> graduate student in the Tamil Nadu Agricultural
> university.
> Was.
>
> Like her eldest sister, she too wanted to research and
> become an agricultural scientist. But Hemalatha's
> ambitions were burnt to ashes on February 2 by a group
> of hooligans. Everything was over in minutes.
>
> War cries filled the air outside the courtroom when
> Special Court Judge-2 V Radhakrishnan read the
> verdict on the Pleasant Stay Hotel case.
>
> Former Tamil Nadu chief minister and All-India Anna
> Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalitha was
> sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for a year and a
> fine of Rs 1,000. So were four others, including a
former
> minister in her cabinet, T Selvaganapathy, now a
> member of Parliament.
>
> The AIADMK's response was violent. They blocked
> traffic at many places, stopped government buses, not
> only within Madras, but in other parts of Tamil Nadu
> too.
>
> In Dharmapuri, it went a step ahead. A group,
allegedly
> of the AIADMK, stopped a bus carrying 70 students of
> the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, and set fire
to
> it.
>
> The students were returning to Coimbatore after a
study
> tour. They were forced out of the bus through the
front
> door; the back door was locked. But before Hemalatha,
> Gayathri and Kokila could get out, one of the mob
> locked the front door from the outside.
>
> Even as other students and teachers cried out that
> there were people inside, a miscreant threw a
>petrol bomb.
>
> The whole bus burst into flames. And three young girls
> were charred to death.
> "We couldn't even see her face," Kesava Chandran, her
> father, choked.
>
> It was he who had left Hemalatha in the hostel three
> months ago. She was planning to return this week. But
> instead, her charred body came back.
>
> "What did my daughter do? Why do they have to punish
> innocent people?" Chandran asked. "She [Jayalalitha]
> was not even arrested or taken to jail. If this is the
> way
> her men behave on hearing a court verdict, I don't
know
> what will happen later."
>
> Chandran, an Indian Bank employee, came out from
> work in the evening to find no vehicles on the road.
He
> was surprised. He had heard about the court verdict
and
> the violent reactions, but little did he know that a
> mob
> had turned its fury on his daughter.
>
> By night, he got a message from Dharmapuri that the
> college bus had met with an accident and his daughter
> was in the hospital.
>
> "I am not a member or supporter of any political
party,
> but I work for the welfare of my community, the
> scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. I have heard of
> miscreants setting fire to transport buses. But till
> now
> they did it only after emptying the bus. Here, even
> when
> they knew that some girls were inside, they did it!"
> Chandran still can't believe it.
>
> "As it was the university bus, they looked at it as
the
> government's. I do not know which party people did
> this. Whoever it is, we are the sufferers, are we not?
> We lost our daughter. It was very, very cruel. That's
> all
> I can say."
> He continued: "My daughter wanted to be an
> agricultural scientist and do research. So the country
> has also lost a young scientist. Three young lives are
> gone. They will not come back. What did they gain out
> of this? My heart breaks whenever the image of her
> smiling face appears in front of me. We could not even
> see her face..."
>
> While returning home with his daughter's body,
> Chandran saw thousands of students on the streets,
> protesting. "They did not belong to either the AIADMK
> or DMK. They were merely angry students. The
> political scene has become so dirty that I feel we
need
> a
> change. All these people and parties should go and a
> new set of leaders should come up. Only then will our
> youngsters have a better future.
>
> "If those in power do not stop such heinous acts,
these
> parties will disappear. If political parties are going
> to
> behave like this, students will rise and rise from the
> ashes of these girls," he said.
>
> Hemalatha's uncle, who had been listening to the
> conversation, added: "The boy who tried to help Hema
> and the other girls told me that the hooligans refused
> to
> listen to their pleas. If they had not locked the
door,
> the
> girls would have escaped.
>
> "She [Jayalalitha] says they are not AIADMK men. But
> tell me who went berserk that day after hearing the
> verdict? Her party workers. So it is anybody's guess
> who they were... Whoever they are, the loss is ours."
>
> By then it was time for Chandran to go to the
> crematorium. To collect his daughter's ashes. As he
got
> up, tears rolled down.
>
> The flow of well-wishers had not subsided when he
> returned. The house was still crowded with people:
> students from nearby colleges, friends of Hemalatha
and
> her sisters, students from Kasi Ammal's school,
> Chandran's colleagues and the entire neighbourhood.
>
> Meanwhile, the political scene in Tamil Nadu has taken
> a turn for the worse. The AIADMK and DMK accuse
> each other of trying to gain political mileage from
the
> incident. You could see posters condemning
> Hemalatha's killers on the walls, obviously pasted by
> the AIADMK's detractors.
>
> "What do they think? That they will be able to get
away
> with this? No, the students will not let them," some
in
> the emotionally charged crowd fumed.
>
> "A change is going to take place. Please write in
> detail
> about this gruesome incident.
> Let the whole world know how our political parties
> behave."
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