Every paper and every news channel in Delhi is busy exposing the shocking details of the rape and murder of 30 children by Moninder Singh and his cook, Surendra. Everyone knows the details of the tamasha, so I'll not repeat the gory details. Everyone and his uncle has expressed horror at how low a human being can sink. But, unlike the poor people who have to be prevented by the police from forming a mob and rioting, most of us have missed the real point.
The true horror is that the police did not do anything because the victims were poor people. That too is a fact of life that we often try to shut our eyes and pretend does not exist. Ask any maid, or driver or sweeper - do they expect the police to help them if they are in trouble? The usual response is that they prefer to avoid the police, because if thy approach them, they will have to pay bribes, and still get harassed, and anyway, the police will do nothing for them.
There's a saying in Bengali:
Baaghe chule ek gha,
Police chule tin gha...
Police chule tin gha...
Roughly translated: A policeman's bite is three times worse than a tiger's. That's a common man's perception of the police. Not just in Delhi - anywhere in India
Personally, I suspect that there is nothing more ghastly or scandalous behind the crime - no politician enjoying a bit of necrophilia on the side, no senior policeman farming out kids to paedophils, no juicy story to be dug out.
What's there is worse, a sad tale of neglect and callousness. What the police are trying to cover up is not the crime of commision - namely the rape and murder of so many children, but the crime of omission - the refusal of the police to investigate while it was still possible to save the lives of most of the children.
I'll tell you what I guess will happen - the criminal has been arrested and will face the music in court 20 years from now. Som policemen have been dismissed - thT will stay. Senior policement have been suspended - after the case has faded from popular memory (i.e. the media has turned to a new story), these guys will be brought back and life will go on as usual.
Even after this, will the police take a poor person seriously when he/she comes to file a case? You must be joking!
If you don't live in an ivory tower, you'd know that when a rich or even a middle class person commits a crime against a poor person, there will be policemen, who for a consideration, will advise you on how to hush up the case, or at worst, escape from the clutches of the law. They'll scold you if you surrender, and tell you that you're a fool not to have disappeared and taken anticipatory bail. They'll advise you on how much to pay the victim or the victim's family (there will be a percentage deducted from that for every cop in the station, depending on the rank). This was true from the Mughal era, still true under the British and true even now.
