It is not only in movies where love turns people into obsessive stalkers. In recent times, it seems like youngsters are resorting to similar violence if their love stories don’t meet turn into what they want. Wednesday morning brought in the news of a girl being attacked in Warangal by a man who was pursuing her. After being rejected by the victim T Ravali Rao, the attacker, Pendyala Sai Anvesh threw kerosene on her and set her on fire.
In another shocking incident on the same day, Madhulika, a second year intermediate student was attacked by a stalker with a sickle in Barkatpura when she was going to her college. The attacker identified as Bharat was stalking the victim and harassing her to get into a relationship with him. She repeatedly spurned his advances and had earlier complained to the Bharosa centre.
According to reports, the youth was called in counselling by the authorities. “I have warned him that we are living in same locality and they should live like a brother and sister. I have lodged a complaint with SHE teams and they have counselled him.
Since the boy’s grandfather was in police, he used his influence and brought him before the counselling session was completed. I have never expected that he would try to kill my daughter,” shares the grieved father of the victim Madhulika.
What is more shocking is that Hyderabad boasts of an active SHE team who have been otherwise successful in curbing crime rate against women. According to A.S.G. Shanti, constable, SHE team, it is the easy access of the youngsters to social media and other dating apps that makes them more vulnerable. “Youngsters often tend to be in touch with a strangers without knowing them in person and that increases the chances of any possible revenge attacks.
No one knows what is going on inside a person’s mind. But if we catch someone who is harassing any girl, we do give them a warning and call them for counselling. But everything can’t be solved through counselling, these sort of revenge attacks should be condemned,” she concludes.
Elaborating on why these gruesome love-revenge cases are increasing amongst youth in Telangana, Srikanth Goggi, consultant clinical Psychologist, says, “Youngsters who have unipolar thinking which often tends to become impulsive and possessive in nature. It is not every jilted lover who is out on a revenge spree. It is those people who don’t have the ability to judge what is right and wrong. Most of the attackers do not have any feeling of remorse post attack. Absolutely they don’t have sensibility,” further adding, “The only way of helping these attackers are through clinical psychiatric treatment. But saying that, even through treatments, not everyone will recover from that revengeful state of mind, it will vary from case to case.”
