To Kill a Tiger

According to official estimates, a woman in India is raped every 20 minutes, and roughly 90% of those incidents go unreported, despite strengthened legal protections that have been put into place. Police investigations seldom achieve much, either, especially since residents in many communities (particularly in rural areas) prefer to handle such episodes among themselves without outside official intervention, a means to avoid bringing undue attention to such troubling circumstances and the attendant shame that accompanies them. However, in 2017 in eastern India, a courageous father whose…

Ranjit and his wife left their thirteen year old daughter Kiran to celebrate the closing stages of a wedding ceremony in their home village and went home to bed. When he awoke later to find their front door still open, he was concerned for his missing daughter whom he meets on the lane outside, dishevelled and in tears. She claimed to have been raped by three lads from their village and upon taking her to hospital it would appear that there was no "claim" about it. He immediately informed the police and Kapil, Iswar and Lungru are promptly taken into custody and charged. So why do we need a…