Women's safety takes a beating with the likes of BJP leader forcibly kissing 19-year-old
It is no longer a secret that men in powerful positions often use their power to ensnare women which also involves some form of forced or coerced sexual exploitation. And Indian politicians have an extensive history of exploiting the vulnerable and marginalised.
In another such case of exploiting public position and the privileges attached to it, a BJP leader in Maharashtra, Ravindra Bawanthade, was caught in a CCTV camera forcing himself upon a 19-year-old student in a moving bus.
Bawanthade, 48, is a supervisor at a school at Nagbhid in Chandrapur district. The woman of his school filed a rape case against Bawanthade after CCTV footage of the crime inside the bus went viral. The accused was finally arrested on July 4.
According to this report, the video showed the BJP leader "kissing the woman" inside a Gadchiroli-bound bus and later forcing himself upon her. The incident took place on June 27.
The woman in her complaint had claimed it was the second time that Bawanthade "forced" himself upon her inside a vehicle. The BJP leader had lured her to come with him in the bus promising her a job.
She said Bawanthade had also promised to marry her.
Though there were passengers in the bus, surprisingly, no one seemed to be aware of what was happening around.
However, when the conductor spotted the two, Bawanthade initially claimed that he was trying to attend to the woman as she was not feeling well.
According to this report, the conductor found it hard to believe Bawanthade and alerted the bus driver. They later retrieved the CCTV footage and "recorded it on their mobile phones before sharing with each other".
While Bawanthade has been sent to police custody till July 6, the bus driver and conducter too were nabbed for making the footage viral on social media. They have been charged with relevant sections of the Information Technology Act for sharing the clip.
However, the entire episode is not as surprising as abominable because Bawanthade is not alone in his crime. He has an entire support system which is either complicit or incompetent of preventing sexual exploitation of women.
Crimes against women have reached epic proportions with each passing day despite the anti-rape rhetoric by politicians reaching a crescendo.
It cannot get more ironic since crimes against women have been a major poll issue of the BJP. Following the gruesome rape and murder of a para-medical student in Delhi in December 16, 2012, the BJP used the slogan "bahut hua naari par atyachaar, abki baar Modi sarkar" (promising zero tolerance against crime). However, despite having a BJP government at the Centre as well as most states, including Maharashtra, there has been little change in the scenario.
Even during the much-hyped Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the BJP persistently targeted the Samajwadi Party for failing to protect the women population. However, despite the saffron party's landslide victory and measures like the introduction of anti-Romeo sqauds, promises on women's security and empowerment have meant nothing but lip service.
All this shows why women, one of the least-privileged sections, remain silent against sexual exploitation.
They either bury the trauma or pretend that it never happened precisely because of men like Bawanthade and a system, which allows the powerful to get away with crimes and abuses they have been committing against women with impunity.