The stabbing of a young woman by a stalker questions the very civilisational values of our society. Besides being a blot on policing, the incident brings out how little the law enforcement authority are seen to be doing towards ensuring public safety. Police forces around the country appear to be helpless in containing crimes of passion arising from unrequited love rendering Indian women, already endangered by rapists, even less confident about their everyday working lives.
Are Indian men not man enough to get over one-sided love? The phenomenon of stalking has to be dealt with far more strictly by the law. Taking a leaf from the American system of enforcement, the judiciary must be prepared to pass restraint orders on stalkers and, in the event of the order being violated, a minimum jail term must be imposed at once. A form of electronic tagging of stalkers must also be considered. Something must be done quickly about the country’s reputation as the world’s rape capital and now that of stalkers being able to brazenly kill their victims in public places. Unless the police and judiciary act forcefully, we are in danger of becoming a nation in which there is no guarantee of safety to nearly half the population.
