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6 MEN ON A BUS DID IT. WITH WHAT THEY HAD BETWEEN THEIR LEGS. WITH AN IRON BAR THAT DESTROYED HER INSIDES.
She was a 23 year old Indian student who boarded a bus in New Delhi with her boy friend. They had just been to a movie and were going home. Six men took turns to rape her and assault her with an iron bar. Then they threw her and her companion off the moving bus.
That was 2 weeks ago.
On Thursday, December 27th, she was airlifted to Singapore. She died at 4.45 am on Saturday, December 29th. The cause, according to the Chief Executive of Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital was “severe organ failure following serious injuries to her body and brain.”
I couldn’t help speculating how the young woman and her companion could have been horribly attacked in a public bus. Were there other passengers? If so, why didn’t they do anything? Could the driver see what was happening? If so, why didn’t he take charge?
SINCE THE MASSACRE IN NEWTOWN there’s been a vocal US debate about whether guns should be more strictly controlled OR whether schools should be more heavily protected with gun-toting security guards.
Having grown up in a country with strict gun-laws and gone to college in an England at a time when even policemen didn’t carry fire-arms, I’m uncomfortable with the American idea that everyone has the right to bear arms.
I know what happens when there are guns around the house, and children get out of control. The ten year old niece of one of my husband’s best friends killed herself with her father’s gun. The trigger? Too much teasing in school about her weight. And one of my best friend’s oldest sister killed herself with another gun, for reasons we’ll never know now.
Notwithstanding the American Revolution, I don’t see the need for guns and I will never understand why they are a right enshrined in the American Constitution. In India, Gandhi’s peaceful demonstrations drove out the British Colonists. In the Philippines, Corazon Aquino harnessed People Power to overthrow a dictator. Right does triumph over might, and superior fire-power does not necessarily win the day.
Having said that though, I still believe this: GUN CONTROL WON’T STOP THE KILLING.
India is a country with strict arms control. Yet, this woman has died.
China too is a country with strict arms control. But, on December 14th, a knife-wielding man managed to injure 22 children in a primary school in central China. On December 27th, the same day the Indian rape victim was flown into Singapore, another 13 Chinese children were injured when a man rammed a combustible car into them.
IT’S NOT GUNS THAT KILL, IT’S PEOPLE.
And we’ll continue to kill until we learn to turn the anger in our hearts into anguish and then to empathy. Until we see that the “other” is also ourself and that when we harm someone else, a part of us, too, dies.
IT’S US AND OUR UNREDEEMED WILD BEAST HEARTS THAT NEED CONTROLLING. WITH AWARENESS. WITH LOVE.
Do I sound like an idiot idealist? Let me know. Share a comment.