At many instances the law has failed to serve the very purpose for which it has been legislated: to curb crimes in the society.

By Jawed Khurshid

There is a glut of instances when scores of hardened criminals take refuge from incarceration in the loopholes that has become the hallmark of our legal framework. They contort laws, twist facts and manipulate truths to come out from the claustrophobic milieu of prison. This has made mockery of our judicial system.

According to one estimate over 9000 accused had maneuvered bail since 2000. Among them are rapists, criminals and lumpen section of the society who deserve exemplary punishment. But ironically they are bailed out from the dingy cells of prison houses to the secure warmth of their bedrooms. Still bechara law is helpless; remains mock spectator, as usual. We shout against this anomaly but all our shouts return back to us in the form of echo. Pathetically, nobody is ready to even listen to our reasoning.

In many cases, despite much publicity, the accused evades arrest and the law remain mock spectator gawking shamelessly at the turn of event.

Reti Bunder Jhopadpatti – a sleazy shantytown perched in the heart of old Mumbai snuggling Darukhana locality in Mazagaon sobs and snivels at the extreme cruelty that a sibling has committed – raped her own sister. Aslam Wahid (name changed) is a slumlord and a ‘well-connected’ don who boasts of having cordial relation with the infamous bhais of Dubai. ‘This monster has allegedly raped Mumtaz forcibly at gunpoint,’ said an acquaintance on condition of anonymity. Still, despite much hullabaloo, the accused is still roaming free!

The 30 something damsel had not even in her wildest dream thought that a man, who was supposed to protect her modesty from prying eyes and lascivious pretensions of urban predators, her brother, would rape her. In a cloistered enclosure of their ancestral house – a small claustrophobic cubicle there were no one to hear her moans and wails.

Repeatedly the beast outraged her modesty and the fear of ‘dire repercussion’, warned by Wahid had kept her lips sealed to this very day – thereby keeping the justice at bay. ‘On a plethora of occasions we tried to contact her but either she altogether brushed us off as she was scared of some unforeseen eventuality,’ a friend of his father lamented.