Kolkata hangs its head in shame as the hope of a government with a moral compass and a heart in the right place recedes into the distance, notes Payal Singh Mohanka.
The world suffers a lot not because of the violence of bad people but because of the silence of good people. -- Napoleon Bonaparte.
This time there is no silence.
The anger is palpable. As cries of "We Want Justice!" pierced the midnight air, thousands of shocked women and men came out on the streets of Kolkata at multiple venues to express solidarity with the parents of the brutally raped and murdered 31-year-old doctor on the R G Kar medical college and hospital premises.
The campaign to 'Reclaim the Night' on the eve of our 78th Independence Day struck a chord.
Citizens poured out to express their anguish and to demand justice for the deceased.
Sunday was no different. It saw citizens from different walks of life rise in unison.
Fearing protests at the Salt Lake stadium the Durand Cup derby was cancelled on Saturday but grief united supporters of rival football clubs to show up outside the stadium and voice their protest against the brutality of the crime and slow investigation.
Doctors walked through flooded roads demanding justice and hundreds from Bengal's film fraternity were out on the streets to put their might behind the cry for justice.
Kolkata is determined to let this crime not be forgotten.
For someone who has spent six decades in this city, this was a sight I had never witnessed before.
The gruesome rape and murder on August 9 left citizens seething with rage.
The young doctor had worked a 36-hour shift and was resting in the seminar room. A 'civic volunteer' was arrested. The victim's parents don't believe he is the only perpetrator of the horrific crime.
Who is a civic volunteer? A former Kolkata police officer explains, "They are local TMC (Trinamool Congress) cadres who are available on call and paid Rs 10,000 a month. Initially they were inducted to help with traffic as well as crowd management during Durga Puja. But now they have virtually taken over every police station."
"In Kolkata alone there are 60,000 civic volunteers spread over the city's 70 police stations, while the entire state has close to 2 lakhs of them," the retired police officer adds.
"These local strongmen have over time become a law unto themselves," he says.
The ruling Trinamool Congress party's handling has been inept.
The state government headed by the country's only female chief minister transferred the controversial R G Kar medical college principal to the prestigious Calcutta National Medical College within hours of his stepping down!
It is to the credit of the students and young doctors at the CNMC that he was not allowed into the premises.
Dissatisfied with the Kolkata police's handling of the case, the Calcutta high court transferred the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation on August 13.
Six days after the tragic incident, while thousands of women and men were peacefully protesting at midnight at multiple venues in the city, goons went on a rampage and vandalised the R G Kar hospital while the administration merely looked on.
Can citizens be blamed for thinking this was an attempt to destroy evidence before the case was handed to the CBI?
Mahua Moitra, the TMC's feisty Lok Sabha MP with a large fan following in Bengal especially when she takes on the BJP government in Parliament, has been a huge disappointment.
Moitra went on social media to 'bust myths'. In trying to defend the indefensible, she sounded ridiculous as she dived into unfortunate and unnecessary details of the weight of the victims's organs and a lesson on bodily fluids being measured in millilitres and not grams.
She even defended construction work very close to the scene of the crime. The government, she claimed, was granting the request of the students. They needed a rest area and toilets! Could this not have waited for the investigation to conclude?
If this crime had occurred in a state ruled by the BJP, would this MP not have asked if this was an attempt to tamper with evidence?
Why did the principal not file a complaint?
Why were the parents made to wait for three hours before they saw their daughter's body?
Is the principal so important to the ruling dispensation?
But for Moitra, who fought the Lok Sabha elections this summer after being suspended from the last Lok Sabha, this is possibly payback time.
After all, her leader had stood solidly behind her as she campaigned in Krishnanagar, her constituency.
How could she show her leader the mirror?
Bengal's voters forgave the TMC a series of scams -- cattle smuggling, ration distribution, teacher recruitment, visuals of obscene piles of currency discovered by the enforcement directorate during raids -- but the present crisis is the chief minister's toughest challenge in the 13 years she has been in office.
Is it because this crime occurred in the heart of Kolkata unlike rape cases reported from Kamduni and Sandeshkhali?
Unfortunately, acts of brutality in remote areas of the country don't get the attention and media coverage they warrant.
Just like the Nirbhaya case in the capital shocked the entire nation, this heinous crime has united doctors and civil society throughout the country.
The chief minister reminds striking doctors of their duty and responsibility towards patients, but what about her duty as the one at the helm of both the police and health departments in the state?
The most diehard TMC supporter cannot condone her administration's huge failure.
While the chief minister goes on marches, makes strident speeches, the city hangs its head in shame as the hope of a government with a moral compass and a heart in the right place recedes into the distance.
The city of joy is swamped in sadness today as Kolkata clings to its only hope: The findings of the courts and the CBI.
Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff.com
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
