The social workers of the cell followed on ‘our case of that poor little girl’ every now and then by keeping track of what was happening in the court on it. Tch, they went in unison, tch, tch, these laws are such a mess; they said this when the case finally came up and the judge let off the accused for lack of proof.

No, such a ‘strategic alliance’ between social workers and the police is certainly not needed.

Nor should it be that social workers think they should be the ones to decide whether a sexual abuser goes to jail or not. Because this is how the bleeding hearts brigade can actually wind up confounding the issue. A girl is sexually abused by her father in Mumbaii, she is molested. The mother is not at home, the neighbours hear the girl crying out and intervene; they rescue the girl, they beat up the father, he runs away, he returns after a few days. The social workers go into a huddle—should the father be handed over to the police or not? No, they decide, the father need not be arrested, they offer several reasons why. First, the girl has been molested, not raped; punishment for this crime, if proved, is meagre at best. Secondly, the man is a first-time offender, and therefore quite likely to get a suspended sentence. Thirdly, the man is the only breadwinner, he is the father of six children, if his wife permits a case to be registered against him, the possibility of him abandoning his family, running away again, and perhaps even abusing another child is very high. Finally, the girl would have to live within a society who in all probability could blame her for what had happened.

And thus these social workers play both God and police, they decide that the man need not go to jail. Says one of those social workers, ‘We took this decision in the interests of that child.’

Congratulations.

What about the fact that the father can do it to the child again? And to the children of the neighbourhood? Or perhaps the children in some other neighbourhood? ‘This does not mean that the man is allowed to continue molesting unchecked. The social workers would have to pay daily home visits. Two or three of his girls would be placed in boarding schools. The mother would have to be helped to get contraception since the chances of the man agreeing to use it would be slim to non-existent. Even the neighbours would be enlisted to keep a watch on the man and his movements, be it within the family or out.’

Wonderful, even if typically woolly-headed optimism.

Word gets around in that neighbourhood. Two months later, three boys in the vicinity, ages fifteen to seventeen, rape an under-ten years old girl.

Why did this happen? Is there any connection between the two cases? Cause and effect? What message went out in the neighbourhood—and specially to the neighbourhood youth and children—when one man molested his daughter and several people got together to keep him out of jail?