While we are gradually adjusting to the Delhi gang rape case, some incidents happened in Goa. They make us sit up again and think where we all are heading. In a school in Goa a class 2 student was raped by an unknown person in the school toilet and the girl was found shivering there. Incidentally the time at which the school authorities came to know about the incident and when the police was informed there was a lapse of four hours as alleged by the girl’s parents. Moreover the school authorities also supposedly cleaned the toilet and bathed the girl before any investigation can be done as claimed by the parents.
The next incident happened three days later, where a 19 year old girl was not only raped but her head was smashed beyond recognition and her body was found in the forest of Assagao, at a distance of 20 km from Panaji. Both incidents are shocking to say the least and brings to the fore many things. Firstly, the attempt by the school authorities to hide this incident reveals a disturbing factor which is that the school was more concerned about its reputation and was desperate to remove this blemish on its image. In the process what was overlooked was the fact that how a stranger gets into a school and commits such a crime? What about the safety of the children in schools then? .
All this happened after the Chief Minister of Goa, Manohar Parikkar had stated with reference to the Delhi gang-rape that such incidents will never happen in Goa. We always have this tendency to think that crime can happen somewhere else and not where we are. As the rape cases are reported more in Delhi that doesn’t mean they don’t happen somewhere else. It is a fact that Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Delhi have high incidence of rape crimes and Goa has less number of cases reported. But what about these incidents which may get the tag of isolated incidents in the long run? Can they be overlooked? And doesn’t that mean that danger lurks at the footsteps only it is that we decide to ignore it. Rape is a crime which can happen anywhere given the mentality of the persons who commit that crime. Yes there are external factors which also contribute to the same but we have to identify this as a problem first then only we will head towards the solution. We should be asking ourselves, when this will stop and what are we doing to prevent that.
