Ever heard of a Sunil More? He’s not related to Kiran More and that surely is a bad way to start this post.

I bet not many would’ve heard of him. He’s the lowly vermin of a police constable who raped a 17 year old girl inside a police booth. And now he’s convicted, sent to jail for 12 years. And the media is jubilant at how justice has been done in a country where the guilty are dead long before punishment is awarded to them.

Ever heard of Manu Sharma? By now you would have; even if you haven’t, you’d have heard of his more-famous victim, Jessica Lall. Hell, Wikipedia has an entire entry devoted to her. When we all last heard, he’s still going about life as usual. The media just had the right story to feed its hungry coffers: every other mediahouse wanted “justice for Jessica” after Manu Sharma was acquitted.

To be fair to it, the media’s coverage, vociferous though it was, did do some good. But just.

However, when Sunil More was convicted within a year, there was absolutely no need for the media to go ballistic. From the Indian Express news item:

27 witnesses, not 1 hostile: less than a year, cop guilty in Marine Drive rape

In a crowded Mumbai courtroom today, as additional sessions judge K U Chandiwal convicted a former police constable to 12 years’ rigorous imprisonment for raping a minor girl at a Marine Drive police chowky, the message couldn’t have been clearer: speedy justice can be delivered. It took less than a year to convict the guilty—the crime was committed on April 21, 2005. And it didn’t happen in a fast-track court: a regular sessions court simply fast-tracked proceedings. And above all, it took 27 witnesses standing firmly by their original statements.

Agree with most of it except the line underlined: justice depends on who is accused. Manu Sharma also happens to be the grandson of Shankar Dayal Sharma (Manu’s aunt is Shankar Dayal Sharma’s daughter), former President of India, and his dad is a Minister in power. It would really shock our collective wits if Manu was indeed convicted.

Sunil More to his eternal damnation is as I said, a lowly police constable and the twenty seven witnesses would have nothing to fear or lose to testify against him. But the media wants us to believe otherwise:

And above all, it took 27 witnesses standing firmly by their original statements. And those accounts had been given to a police force which effected its biggest turnaround in recent times by keeping secret each of the 27 identities.

Don’t blame me for being cyncial but I see no big deal in keeping their identities secret. The Jessica Lall Affair sings a different tune: why couldn’t the same police force keep the identities secret in the Lall case? I’ll dare say that some cops willingly participated in destroying evidence in the Lall case: power, fear, and greed.

I have no sympathies for Sunil More but I’m a trifle amused at the Indian Express’ rather bombastic report that seems to convey that everything is hunky-dory with the Indian legal system.

Cross-posted at Desicritics.