Editorial
Bullying girls at roadside
Community, police need to be on guard
Another teenaged girl has killed herself as neither her family, nor the community could protect her from the tyranny of her tormenters. Naspia Akand Pinky, a 14-year old ninth grader from the Shyamoli Ideal Technical School and College, could not stand anymore the disgrace she had to digest everyday on her way to school at the hands of a street-corner bully Murad and his cohorts. Her repeated complaints to her parents about the daily harassment she had to suffer were of little avail. So, she decided the ultimate.
Pinky's sad end at such a tender age is not just another unwanted death of a hapless girl. It is an indictment against a society that has become brutalised and aloof towards the suffering of its own members. And in most cases, it is the women who become the victims.
The reports in the newspaper speak volumes for that, because on her last day that she was being tormented by the wayside rogues, the people around the place did not come to her rescue. Neither was any member of the law-enforcing agencies there to help her out.
The tragedy sends a very distressing message to society. It is that its young members are gradually losing their faith in its power to protect them.
It is, therefore hardly surprising that the list of other young girls like Pinky, for example, Simi, Mohima and Trisha, dying under similar circumstances is getting longer. So far, the culprits who were behind their deaths could not be brought to justice.
Pinky's sad demise flies in the face of our socio-moral values that we traditionally stand for. It also poses serious question before the law-enforcement institution. Could such harassment of a school-going girl by roadside bullies leading to her death take place if there were regular police patrols at the major trouble spots in the city?
So, it is not only the community, the state, too, has failed to protect its young female member like Pinky and others.
It is, therefore time the community at large shook off its apparent lethargy and protected its own young members from the tyranny of the roadside scoundrels. At the same time, the law-enforcers, too, cannot forgo their responsibility to become more active and bring the girl-teasers to book.
We hope, the criminal who forced Pinky to take her own life would soon be arrested and given exemplary punishment, so that, in the future, no other troublemaker dares to torment any other girl at the street corners.
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