The Noida Killings - How Much More Is Enough?

How many more children will have to be abused, mutilated and killed, how many more mothers will have to live with questions than can never be answered before we become responsible as a civil society and say enough!

We are supposed to have a law and order mechanism but what we forget is that these work only for those who have money, power or at least a vote. The parents of the dead children of Nithari did not have any of these. Migrants from other states they came in search of work with a hope hat maybe they will be able to give their children a better life. Instead they sent them straight to a horrific death.

Imagine the plight of a parent whose child has gone missing. Imagine his sense of utter defeat as he knocks at the portals of a police station and is sent away over and over again with contempt. Imagine his despair when he is told that the children of the likes of him do not exist for the so called system. Imagine the days and nights spent in waiting for a miracle that never comes. And finally imagine that closure comes with a set of clothes, a heap of bones and the realisation of the horror that one cannot begin to imagine.

Then try to envisage what that parent feels when in the dead of night and numbed with excruciating pain he realises that just a stones' throw away another child went missing and within moments everyone was on their toes: policemen, politicians, admin bigwigs et al and within days the child was back home.

Welcome again to the great divide of India, one that is even more poignant in a land where democracy is supposed to protect each and every one. Have we forgotten the preamble of our constitution where we promised to secure to all citizens among other things justice, social, economic and political.

When did invisible riders appear along the way that segregated people and marginalised some? When did our constitution get hijacked by hidden agendas and why did we just sit and watch it happen? Was it because the likes of us knew that we would remain on the right side of things.

One again one's head hangs in shame. The past months has been filled with such moments: the orphanage in ghaziabad, the little fingers for a handful of spinach, and now countless children mutilated and killed, their organs traded so that someone with money could live making some rich on the way.

2006 was the year of people power but before that power also falls prey top the great divide it we need to act if we are to redeem for ourselves the right to be worthy of ourselves. Or let me put it another way, one that maybe is better understood in our pathetic times, it is time to act now if we are to protect and secure our own future, as the day is not far when the cumulative pain and anger of those we have shunned away will rise and I know that one that day all the gods in heaven will be on their side.