Gimme More

...is what all of Bombay has been screaming for the last three days. If only the Bombay Police would let the public get their hands on Constable Sunil More (pronounced Mo-ray), he'd doubtlessly be lynched, like the trouser thief of Malad.

For those who tuned in late, this is serious stuff. Last Thursday (21 Apr), Beat Marshall Sunil More (aged 30) physically assaulted and raped a 16 year old girl. He had apparently been told about a couple walking on the tetrapods (i.e. over the boundary wall by the sea) by a couple of private security guards. After shooing away the girl's male friend (the duo had strayed a bit from the rest of their group), More took the girl inside the police chowky for "questioning", and raped her three times.

Yes, right there on Marine Drive, in the middle of the day. To get in the mood he first downed some booze too, and repeatedly hit the girl to stop her screaming. It was only after passersby heard her screams and tore down the door that he came out of the booth and defiantly told the public to shut up because, well, he was the law.

If this isn't the most reprehensible thing to have happened in Bombay for a while, I don't know what is.

More was immediately arrested and charged with Sections 376 (rape) and 342 (wrongful confinement) of the Indian Penal Code and later sacked.

Since Thursday, Marine Drive has been the site of continuous protests and the police has had its hands full trying to calm the crowds down. The cops were so embarassed by the incident that the police chowky was quietly removed the next day to stop reminding people about the rapist in uniform.

Ironically, the girl had come downtown to enquire about a civil defence course. And instead happened to live out every woman (and parent's) worst nightmare, at the hands of one who was supposed to defend.

Constable More has had a colourful past, or so it seems. He had previously received official reprimands five times for his disorderly conduct. And we all know that it takes a lot before cops consider the conduct of one of their own to be disorderly. He must be a real gentleman.

Not unexpectedly, More denied raping the girl (although he admitted having drunk a little), and his friendly neighbours even suggested that he was being framed. In the midst of writing this post, I was told that I must include the word "alleged" before accusing an officer of the law of being a rapist. Sure enough someone or the other will soon come forth with a character assassination of the girl - cast aspersions on her behaviour at college, and insist that she made up the whole incident in order to cover something else up. But somehow I'm inclined to believe that it really happened, because I don't think people (including the government doctors who confirmed that rape had occurred and that More was drunk) would accuse a cop of a heinous crime just for kicks.

So why exactly has this incident outraged Bombay's notoriously apathetic populace enough to draw them out onto the streets in protest? A lot of crime takes place in Bombay everyday, just like any other large city. Cops as criminals is hardly news. Rapes of minors, horrible as they are, aren't new either. So why the Big Noise?

The message from the people is loud and clear:

We will tolerate badly-surfaced, woefully-inadequate roads and hopeless traffic. We will continue to pay 40% of this country's taxes, and let Delhi spend 80% of them. We will tolerate piles of rotting garbage even in the poshest of areas and we will tolerate the accompanying stink. We will ignore hookers, drug peddlers and beggars; and we will pretend that the slums do not exist. We will tolerate police high-handedness, especially when it comes to enforcing how much fun we are "allowed" to have.

But we will NOT, under any circumstances, tolerate a police officer who rapes a young girl. Not in Bombay, the only city in India where women feel safe using public transport alone at 2 AM. Not in liberal and cosmopolitan South Bombay, where a woman may walk with a man without having disapproving middle-aged ladies ask her how the two of them are related. And definitely not on the Queen's Necklace, which is one of the few places where the people of Bombay allow themselves to be relaxed and carefree. And not in a police chowky, for God's sake. We don't care what the crime-of-the-month is in Bihar, but this is Bombay. This particular atrocity is simply not on.

The Bombay Police takes its job as the Guardian of Public Morality pretty seriously, so it'll be very interesting to watch exactly how quickly and how maturely it's able to deal with this situation. Especially since there doesn't seem to be any money to be made from it.

In any case, it will be a long time before the average pandu regains enough credibility to be able to go up to a couple (or even groups of young people) enjoying a little privacy by one of Bombay's beaches or promenades, and threaten them with action against "public obscenity" (or a fine of Rs. 1,200 or a bribe of Rs. 300). Whether or not people should be allowed to get cosy by the sea is another debate altogether, and for the moment let's file it away (a little unfairly) with the debate on the ban on dance bars in Bombay, which by the way the police has been extremely efficient in implementing.

But even the strictest of St. Xaviers' professors will agree that brutal rape - which inflicts bruises that last a lifetime - is no way to punish a teenager, no matter what her offence.

My plea, in writing this post, is not one of expediency to the police and the courts; nor one of leniency and restraint to the protesting public. It's to the parents who are now even more worried about letting their girls step out of the house. Look at this way, please, if she's not safe with a group of friends in broad daylight in the heart of the most liberal quarter of this country, she's not even safe inside your home! So let them out anyway, and they'll learn to fend for themselves better. And beasts like More will learn to respect women more once they get used to seeing more of them around. And sexually frustrated security guards from UP will learn to mind their own business, instead of interfering with young people having fun.

My salute to those fellow citizens who chose not to look the other way. These are the same people who say "Chalta hai, bhai. Life goes on..." and need shoot-at-sight orders to be imposed before they let themselves stop going about their daily business. But stop they did, and stared the cops back in the face. Kudos. This is why Bombay is Bombay.

As for PC More, I hope they somehow get hold of him and hang him. At least for a little while, until the cops arrive...


Addendum:

Looks like I was right. Aapli Shiv Sena's in-house Marathi tabloid Saamna today published a front-page editorial piece which effectively said that girls in Bombay should expect such incidents to happen if they continue to wear "low-waist jeans" and indulge in "page 3 culture".

Jokers.