The Big Story: Setting thugs free

On January 24, 2009, members of a Hindutva group called the Sri Ram Sene beat up women outside a pub in Mangaluru in Karnataka. A video of the incident showed women being dragged out of the pub by men who slap and push them around, evidently irked by the “cultural invasion” of establishments that encourage the easy mingling of the sexes. Despite the violent scenes being recorded on video, a Bengaluru court on Monday acquitted all the 26 men accused of carrying out the attacks, including Sri Ram Sene chief Promod Muthalik, for want of evidence. Fittingly, the name of the pub in which the violence occured was “Amnesia”.

Given that all accused have been set free, a fundamental question remains: who beat up the women that day in 2009? Unlike many other criminal cases for which the police struggle to obtain documentary evidence, there was definite video evidence here clearly showing the culprits .

Ironically, this easy availability of evidence was the factor that derailed the case. According to media reports, the prosecution had failed to bring important witnesses to the stand, including the women who were attacked. The veracity of the video evidence was questioned by the defence as there was not enough corroborative evidence in the form of witness statements.

The fact that the victims were afraid to testify in court showed that the state government had utterly failed to ensure their security. While the case began with the Bharatiya Janata Party in power in Karnataka, it has ended in an acquittal under a Congress government. Though the Congress has repeated in its election campaign for the May Assembly polls that it will show zero tolerance for moral policing, the verdict shows that these statements have little value.

The BJP’s euphoric reaction to the verdict, on the other hand, has betrayed its utter insensitivity to those who were attacked. Shobha Karandlaje, the party MP from Udupi-Chickmagalur, expressed her support for Muthalik and said given the sensitive atmosphere in coastal Karnataka, women should be careful and take care of themselves. “They were in jail for six years for no reason,” she said about the alleged attackers.

Such easy acquittals in cases where there was strong primary evidence will only embolden violent groups like the Ram Sene. The state government must act decisively to ensure that the verdict is reversed in a higher court.

The Big Scroll

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