On April 22 when the second phase of the Budget session of Parliament began, both Houses were rocked by the Opposition parties over the leaked JPC report of 2G spectrum allocation, irregularities in allocation of coal blocks and the brutal rape of a five-year old girl child in Delhi. Expectedly, all the English news channels on that day chose the most sensational case of the rape of a child in the capital, protests over that barbaric incident and public cry for death penalty to the culprits for their prime-hour panel ‘discussions’, the quotation marks to denote that they were no discussions but the moderator (editor) and zealots together shouting out and silencing sane voices and thrusting their ‘popular’ opinions.
When we surfed Tamil news channels on the same day, except ‘Kalaignar TV news channel, in all others the discussions were on the same topic of the Delhi incident. None of them cared to take note of a similar bestial incident in Tirupur on April 12 much before the Delhi incident and the police beating and arresting locals who were protesting against the rape of an eight-year old girl or even cover the ghastly incident and protests in their regular news bulletins. The incident would not have come to the notice of people of the state had not the Chief Minister and Leader of the Opposition of Kerala raised it and came to the help of the hapless girl, uncared for by a woman Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and her regime.
The rape of the eight-year-old Malayali girl in Tirupur raised an alarm in the garment city, while four persons have been arrested in this connection, reports said only on April 23, 11 days after the incident.
The girl was raped while alone at home after she returned from school two weeks ago by a man in the neighbourhood and others of a gang. She was out of danger, but still in a state of shock, doctors at the Ganga Hospital in Coimbatore where she was now under treatment, said.
Doctors told Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy that the girl was responding well to the treatment.
While 23-year-old Kannan, the main accused, was arrested and remanded to judicial custody earlier, police said on April 23 they arrested three more persons – Devendran, 27, from Kattumannarkudi, Raja, 41, and Saravanan from Thiruvannamalai. All the four were workers of garment factories in the city. The men had also threatened the family with dire consequences if they reported the matter to the police.
The girl’s mother, Lalitha, is from Pathanapuram, and father Unnikrishnan worked in Chennai, but the couple were not in good terms for some time now. The girl studying in class II at a private school in Tirupur used to go to school by school bus. After returning from school, she used to attend tuition classes till evening, by when her mother, who works at a garment shop, would return home.
On April 12, however, the school closed early. The tuition for the day had been cancelled. The child returned home and was about to have food when Kannan came inside and sought some curry. “He pounced on the child and three more assailants joined him. After raping her, they subjected her to shocking brutality and even tried to smother her using a pillow,” locals said.
When the mother came home late in the evening, she saw the girl in an unconscious state and rushed her to a local hospital. Later, the girl revealed the rape incident, and a police complaint was filed. Police initially took a casual view of the incident, but when locals raised protests, a case was registered at the Anuparpalayam police station, and the administration was forced to intervene and shift the girl to a better equipped hospital after the protests of people of the town.
Chief Minister Chandy spoke to the family members of the victim and offered all help including medical assistance. Also, local Malayalee associations are backing Lalitha, who was still in a state of shock. She was living in the area for the past seven years. Meanwhile, on the directions of Chandy, KPCC secretary C.Chandran called on the relatives of the victim and inquired about the details. He also spoke to the office-bearers of the Tamil Nadu Malayalee Association, which is standing by with support.
But all the while, neither any Minister of the ADMK government or local ruling party functionaries cared to visit the child and her mother and console them or offer any help. Nor did the woman Chief Minister of TN Jayalalitha issue any statement or speak on the subject when she presented a rosy picture of law and order situation in the state in the Assembly on April 23, ably “supported” by the media by suppressing heinous crimes like this from the notice of people. By the turn of this year also the entire media, both English and Tamil and print and electronic, showed hyper-sensitivity to the Delhi incident in which a girl was raped in a bus and thrown out while they displayed immunity to a chain of rape incidents in Tamil Nadu in the first two weeks of January last.
We have largest number of television channels and news channels in Tamil than in any other language in India. Perhaps we may even have the largest number of dailies and periodicals in Tamil than other languages. But it is a misfortune that almost all of them are very vocal and devote pages after pages on national and other states’ and international issues affecting people, nothing more than films and entertainments and ‘rumblings’ in opposition parties matter them while the burning problems of people of the state- like 16-18 hour power cut a day, closure of industries, drinking water scarcity, total failure of agriculture and drought situation, increase in murders, burglaries and robberies, the farce of Assembly etc.,- do not at all matter them. But the same media showed hyper-sensitivity during the DMK rule making much ado about nothing.
Why have the media in Tamil Nadu developed immunity to the situation in the state even to the bestial incidents like the above mentioned? Is it forced immunisation or voluntary immunisation? Why, if the latter is the case? People, by whom they swear and survive, have the legitimate right to know.
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