Faye D'Souza
Two crimes, the same mindset: teenage girls punished for being seen with boys
Faye links two cases from the same news day. In Bihar, two Class 10 students, a girl and a boy, were stopped on their way home from coaching by a group of men who abused and chased them and grabbed and dragged the girl; the attackers filmed it and circulated the video themselves. Police say five people are arrested, three of them minors, and the main accused was shot in the leg during his arrest. In Delhi, a 16-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy in a park at 7:30 pm were confronted by three men posing as police; one held the boy while the others raped the girl. All three are arrested, one also shot in the leg during arrest. She quotes Bihar minister Shravan Kumar (JDU) calling the Bihar case a 'chutput' (petty, sporadic) crime, and a BJP MLA from Jamui saying moral policing 'can be done in a decent, more elegant fashion'. Her argument: both attacks came from a belief that a girl out with a boy may be disciplined by strangers, made worse by humiliation filmed as entertainment, poor lighting and patrols, and policing that moves only once a video goes viral. Note: names are from auto-generated captions of a 4.5-minute commentary, so spellings of those quoted may be off.
Why it mattersIt pairs the facts of two cases with how officials are talking about them, and argues that public safety for girls keeps failing even as they outperform in school and at work.
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