A letter signed by one Sunita Vakil was published in last Tuesday’s edition of the Chronicle.
She stated in the opening paragraph of her letter: “The kind of judicial verdict given in the Ruchika case has exposed the way our legal system has been reduced to a joke by the rich and mighty.”
Vakil was writing about an incident that happened in India, but she could have been describing the judicial system of most countries of the world, not least in Guyana.
She continued: “Ruchika Girhotra was all of 14 years old when she was molested by then Inspector General of Police S.P.S Rathore. She and her family were systemically hounded for daring to lodge a complaint. Not only was the victim, a budding tennis player, suspended by the state tennis association, but was also expelled from school for no apparent reason. Several cases of car theft were registered against her teenaged brother. Unable to bear the harassment, she was driven to suicide three years later.
“Meanwhile Rathore continued to be promoted and rose to the rank of DGP. It is indeed a travesty of justice that, while social stigma imposed on Ruchika compelled her to end her life, the accused was not only allowed to continue in his position, but was also rewarded with promotions for molesting a child young enough to be his daughter.”
Once more a victim and her family were put on trial by an uncaring society, where the law favours only the rich and powerful. God only knows how many other innocents Rathore molested, who took heed of what happened to Ruchika and her family and stayed silent.
Nineteen years after the torment started for Ruchika and her family Rathore is still a force to reckon with in the social construct of their community, while the traumatic experiences of Ruchika’s family continued unabated, even subsequent to her compelled suicide.
Her father, Mr. Girhotra, was sacked from his job. Her brother was a constant target for police. The respectable teenage boy from a highly-respectable family was often locked up on trumped-up charges and tortured endlessly. Mr. Girhotra not only lost his only daughter, but the family became social pariahs, outcasts in the community which sided with the predator because he was wealthy and powerful and shunned the victims.
It is a scenario that is constantly played out in almost every nation in the world.
Fifty-five-year-old Jagesh Roopnauth, a security guard residing in Albouystown, was falsely accused by a policeman of sodomizing a dog and locked up by the policeman’s friends for over four months until a medical examination of the dog proved the policeman a liar, who most likely committed perjury in the court. This blatant abuse of power by police ranks is an everyday norm. Roopnauth was made a laughingstock in the society and community in which he lived. He had to endure loss of income and unjust incarceration. Maybe his family also suffered as a result of this false allegation; but what will happen to the policeman who committed perjury? Nothing! The law is the toy of the lawless within the joint services. In most other countries this would have been an offence that is dealt with condignly.
One woman who let someone in need stay in her lower apartment returned home one day to find her home upstairs broken into and ransacked, all her valuables stolen, and she was beaten by the perpetrator when she asked him to leave her home.He laughed at her and dared her to report him, saying that he was a friend of “big ones.”
Indeed, when she went to the Providence Police Station to report him she was instead detained and locked up for days without bail by the police on a charge of theft from the perpetrator. The police did not take her statement, did not investigate the destruction and theft of the woman’s property, but instead brutalised her and traumatised her in the lockups. Her once-impeccable reputation was totally destroyed and she was put on trial, running to court for years, unable to access her home, while the perpetrators lived freely in the woman’s home that she had built single-handedly, with much sacrifice. No-one was brought to trial for perjury when she was eventually proven innocent of the charges.
Landlords do not want to rent their premises to police, or to relatives of police, because they most often prove to be intractable bullies, who use their uniform to carry out vendettas against those with whom they have a grouse – as in the case of Jagesh Roopnauth, who could sue the Police Force on so many grounds if he was properly advised.
The residents of Canje in Berbice and other rural areas have long complained about dishonest and unprofessional behaviour by ranks, with scant attention paid to them. People feel they have no redress if perpetrators are members of Guyana’s security services.
A mother who lost her only son when unknown persons ruthlessly killed her husband and his friend is absolutely convinced that members of the coastguard, who are accused of killing young Dweive Ramdass, are the killers of her beloved boy.
Young girls are taken into custody and raped. Persons are tortured and some die unnecessarily in the lockups, with no convincing explanation provided to relatives.
The instances of corrupt members of the law-enforcement agencies being discovered may be only the tip of the iceberg, and this deterioration need top be halted, and halted by members of the joint services themselves.
The President challenged the Joint Services to wear their uniforms with dignity; and most do. It is incumbent on those who have pride in their uniforms to go that step further and recognise that their loyalty must reside with their country and that anyone who seeks to bring dishonour on the uniform that they wear should be dealt with condignly, with no consideration other than protecting and serving the nation to which they owe fealty by virtue of their mandate.
