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Author Topic: "Arrest us all"
Eaquae Legit
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Now generally I do not condone or support mob-justice, this case makes me really think...

quote:
'Arrest us all'
When hundreds of women descended on Nagpur district
court armed with knives, stones and chilli powder,
within minutes the man who raped them lay dead.

Raekha Prasad reports
Friday September 16 2005
The Guardian


A year ago Usha Narayane was about to embark on a new
life. A call-centre worker with a diploma in hotel
management, she was 25 and about to travel north from
her home in the centre of India to begin a managerial
job in a hotel in Punjab. The job would transport her
not only geographically but also socially.

Like her neighbours, Narayane is a dalit, an
"untouchable", at the bottom of the caste ladder.
Schooling and literacy are rare among the women of
Kasturba Nagar, the slum neighbourhood in the city of
Nagpur where she grew up. She was unmarried, referring
to work and study. Yet nobody resented her success.
Instead, they had high hopes for the girl. But
Narayane went nowhere. Today, she is in her family's
one-room, windowless home, awaiting trial for murder.
At 3pm on August 13 2004, Akku Yadav was lynched by a
mob of around 200 women from Kasturba Nagar. It took
them 15 minutes to hack to death the man they say
raped them with impunity for more than a decade.
Chilli powder was thrown in his face and stones
hurled. As he flailed and fought, one of his alleged
victims hacked off his penis with a vegetable
knife. A further 70 stab wounds were left on his body.
The incident was made all the more extraordinary by
its setting. Yadav was murdered not in the dark alleys
of the slum, but on the shiny white marble floor of
Nagpur district court.

Laughed at and abused by the police when they reported
being raped by Yadav, the women took the law into
their own hands. A local thug, Yadav and his gang had
terrorised the 300 families of Kasturba Nagar for more
than a decade, barging into homes demanding money,
shouting threats and abuse.

Residents say he murdered at least three neighbours
and dumped their bodies on railway tracks. They had
reported his crimes to the police dozens of times.
Each time he was arrested, he was granted bail.

But it was rape that Yadav used to break and
humiliate the community. A rape victim lives in every
other house in the slum, say the residents of Kasturba
Nagar. He violated women to control men, ordering his
henchmen to drag even girls as young as 12 to a nearby
derelict building to be gang-raped.

In India, even to admit to being raped is taboo, yet
dozens of Yadav's victims reported the crime. But the
32-year-old was never charged with rape. Instead, the
women say, the police would tell him who had made
the reports and he would come after them. According to
residents, the police were hand-in-glove with Yadav:
he fed the local officers bribes and
drink, and they protected him.

When one 22-year-old reported being raped by Yadav,
the police accused her of having an affair with him
and sent her away. Several others were sent away after
being told: "You're a loose woman. That's why he raped
you."

Nagpur is counted among India's fastest-growing
cities. Yet the experience of the women of Kasturba
Nagar is a parallel tale of how everyday life in
India's back streets is stuck in the past. Splashed
across the country's news- papers, the gory image of
Yadav's blood on the courtroom floor was a lesson in
the consequences of a state unable to protect the
weak and the vulnerable.

After Yadav's murder, powerful voices were raised
supporting the lynch mob. Prominent lawyers issued a
statement saying the women should not be treated as
the accused, but as the victims. One retired high
court judge even congratulated the women. "In the
circumstances they underwent, they were left with no
alternative but to finish Akku. The women
repeatedly pleaded with the police for their security.
But the police failed to protect them," said Justice
Bhau Vahane.
Two weeks before the lynching, Yadav came to
Narayane's house on several successive days,
threatening to throw acid on her and rape her. He
targeted her, she says, because she was outspoken and
her brother-in-law, a lawyer, had verbally stood up to
Yadav. "He raped only poor people whom he thought
wouldn't go and tell, or if they did, wouldn't be
listened to. But he made a big mistake in threatening
me. People felt that if I were attacked, no woman
would ever be safe."

Although Narayane has been charged with Yadav's
murder, she claims she was not at the court when it
took place but in the slum collecting signatures for a
mass complaint against him. Among the charges levelled
against her are some of India's most serious offences,
including "anti-nationalist" crimes amounting to
treason. "The cops say I planned the
murder; that I started it. They have to make someone a
scapegoat," she says. She believes she has been
singled out because she has been the police's most
vociferous critic. Her education gave her the
confidence that inspired the community to act, she
says.

In the week before the lynching, people started to
talk about taking action against Yadav. He
disappeared, sensing boiling anger. Narayane and
her brother-in-law bypassed the local officers and
went straight to the deputy commissioner. He gave the
family a safe house for a night and promised to search
for him.

On August 6, hundreds of residents smashed his empty
house to rubble.By evening they heard Yadav had
"surrendered" and was in custody. "The
police had said he would be in danger if he came back.
They suggested he surrender into their care for his
own safety."

The next day he was due to appear at the city's
district court and 500 slum residents gathered. As
Yadav arrived, one of his henchmen tried to pass him
knives wrapped in a blanket under the noses of the
police.
After the women protested, the accomplice was arrested
and Yadav taken back into custody, but not before he
threatened to return and teach every
woman in the slum a lesson.

Hearing that Yadav was likely to get bail yet again,
when he returned to court, the women decided to act.
"It was not calculated," Narayane says. "It was not a
case that we all sat down and calmly planned what
would happen. It was an emotional outburst. The women
decided that, if necessary, they'd go to prison, but
that this man would never come back
and terrorise them."

On the day of Yadav's hearing, 200 women came to the
court armed with vegetable knives and chilli powder.
As he walked in, Yadav spotted one of the women he had
raped. He called her a prostitute and threatened to
repeat the crime against her. The police laughed. She
took off her sandal and began to hit him, shouting,
"We can't both live on this Earth
together. It's you or me."

It was a rallying cry to an incensed mob. Soon, he was
being attacked on all sides. Knives were drawn and the
two terrified officers guarding him ran away. Within
15 minutes, Yadav was dead on the courthouse
floor. But his death has not brought the women peace.
Five were immediately arrested, then released
following a demonstration across the city. Now
every woman living in the slum has claimed
responsibility for the murder. They say no one person
can take the blame: they have told the police
to arrest them all.

But it is Narayane who is in limbo as she waits for
her case to be heard. "After the murder, society's
eyes opened: the police's failings came to light. That
has irritated them. The police see me as a catalyst
for the exposure and want to nip it in the bud."
They face a fight. Narayane is loudly unrepentant.
"I'm not scared. I'm not ashamed," she says. "We've
done a good thing for society. We will
see whether society repays us".

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1571375,00.html


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Shan
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wow . . .
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Rico
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The law is there to protect the innocent, when the innocent are trampled on by the law itself then your system isn't just, it's corrupt. Morally if everything in the article is true, these women did the only thing they could to defend themselves.
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Storm Saxon
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The real tragedy is that the women had to take him out of commission because the state was so venal and corrupt.
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Orson Scott Card
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Government only has its authority as long as it serves its purpose. When people have no recourse from government, they make a new government - and usually a worse one. But make it they shall.
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Icarus
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I'm Spartacus!
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Toretha
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I'd say the tragedy is just as much in how powerless untouchables in general are, how abused they've been for centuries.
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Eaquae Legit
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Icarus, I was thinking Caesar and Brutus, myself...
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Shan
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Oh, I dunno - it's pretty standard Old Testament "eye for an eye" and all that. I don't see that anyone has to tolerate that kind of abuse. Particularly when the gvt doesn't protect them - and I'm not sure it's worse gvt to get some safety. I could be very wrong - I have not had to live in those conditions.

I heard an interesting thing the other day with regards to the "New Testament" and the idea of turning the other cheek to the person who struck you.

Apparently, it had to do with standing up to the attacker and saying "strike me as your equal, not your inferior" - I was told that slaves were backhanded across the right cheek - equals were hit across the left. And by "turning" the other cheek, you were insisting that the attacker recognize you as their equal . . .

food for thought, no?

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K.T.
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Maybe I'm a bit of a chauvinist, but I think that the men who care about these women should have done something long ago. I know, it is not that way in India.

But since they had to take care of it themselves...GO THEM!!

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Ryuko
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I.. This is an awful story... I... it's between awe-inspiring and awful, if that makes any sense.
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rivka
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quote:
Originally posted by Shan:
Oh, I dunno - it's pretty standard Old Testament "eye for an eye" and all that.

Except that was never meant literally . . .
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Telperion the Silver
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Holy moly... an awful story BUT also an awesome one! The People rose up against the corruption and terror! All power to the Proletariat!
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Shan
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quote:
Originally posted by rivka:
quote:
Originally posted by Shan:
Oh, I dunno - it's pretty standard Old Testament "eye for an eye" and all that.

Except that was never meant literally . . .
Maybe not - but that hasn't stopped generations of people from treating many parts of the Old and New Testament as literal, to be acted upon, gospel truth (no pun intended) . . . [Big Grin]
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Toretha
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KT- a thug leader who rapes women to control the men. likely the men near them were afraid attempts at doing anything would just lead to more rapes, and as untouchables, they were relatively without any power to get the police to do anything
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jebus202
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I think what KT was saying is that if women could do it, men should have.
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Xaposert
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quote:
The law is there to protect the innocent, when the innocent are trampled on by the law itself then your system isn't just, it's corrupt. Morally if everything in the article is true, these women did the only thing they could to defend themselves.
This justification could be used just about any time to do anything you want against the law. The government won't shut down those abortion clinics - should we bomb them to protect the innocent? The government won't help the poor - should they riot and steal to help themselves? The government won't stop invading other countries, or raising taxes, or finding Michael Jackson innocent, or doing all sorts of things any given person may consider wrong. Does that mean they are justified in taking it upon themselves to be judge and jury? Accepting such behavior commonly would essentially dissolve civil society.

These women should all be arrested - and if what they did was really necessary and was really worth killing this man, then that should be a comparitively minor additional cost for them to pay. My suspicion though, is that like most murders, it was only assumed to be necessary when it was not.

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Rico
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quote:
Accepting such behavior commonly would essentially dissolve civil society.
Yes, but the keyword there is commonly. It is an isolated incident that happened under extreme measures, not a general act that will be repeated by everyone around the world every time they feel like disobeying the law. The law is there to protect everyone's self interests, when it can no longer do that because the system is being abused, that means the system does not work and a new system has to be used.

The reason why all the examples you listed above don't work very well to address the issue is because they are all examples in which the field is mostly 50-50. There is not a widely accepted moral imposed by society, something where your common man or woman would immediately say "Given these circumstances, of course X is the right thing to do!"

Put yourself in these women's shoes, in a society where the justice system actually works for the criminals, a society where justice doesn't protect the innocent, but tramples on them. Would you think this is a system worth keeping?

Nobody is saying such behavior should be common, but much like in any other extreme moral case there are times when exceptions must be made. How many here would say that what these women did, assuming all they said in the article is 100% true, was obviously the wrong decision to make? They didn't avoid the legal system, they tried it and found it to be corrupt.

Some societies need to be dissolved. I'd rather have no society than Hitler's society [Smile]

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closeyourmind
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[tangent]
quote:
Originally posted by rivka:
quote:
Originally posted by Shan:
Oh, I dunno - it's pretty standard Old Testament "eye for an eye" and all that.

Except that was never meant literally . . .
I have a hard time believing this is meant to be taken figuratively. There are many many cases of God requiring death for certain crimes. I think that the wrong way to take this verse is to think that vengeance can be taken without the case going to trial. At least that's how I read the chapter. In this verse, a pregnant woman is hit and a judge is to determine the penalty. If she is not harmed than the penalty is a fine. If she is harmed than the penalty is life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burn for burn, etc. How do you see it?

My interpretation is based on the Exodus passage, but Leviticus and Deuteronomy also have this passage without the specific case being mentioned. But they go into more detail of how the judgement process is to be carried out.

[/tangent]

I think the women, unfortunately, did what they had to do in a corupt government (if the facts are all true). I commend them for it.

Patrick Brown

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Xaposert
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quote:
Yes, but the keyword there is commonly. It is an isolated incident that happened under extreme measures, not a general act that will be repeated by everyone around the world every time they feel like disobeying the law.
Extreme according to us and the women in question, but seemingly not extreme according to their government officials, or else they would have acted.

If you think it is okay for people to create a murderous lynch mob in extreme measures, you have to keep in mind that what is considered "extreme" will be decided by the mob. If we are talking about bombing abortion clinics, it won't matter if society is 50-50 on abortion; all it takes is the individuals involved to consider abortion extreme. Consider witch hunts - it may be the we Hatrackers don't see witches as an extreme threat, but if the particular mob involved DOES, and if they believe it is okay to murder someone in such extreme circumstances, then they are going to do so, whether we'd consider it extreme or not.

In short, I don't think you can rightly say it's okay in this particular extreme case and yet condemn other cases in which those involved consider it to be similarly extreme.

quote:
Some societies need to be dissolved. I'd rather have no society than Hitler's society
That's easily said when you are in neither option - but are you sure you'd prefer no society at all? Iraqis are getting a taste of this choice right now, and I'm betting they are not at all in agreement over whether life was better under Saddam or better under near anarchy. There is a reason dictators end up coming to power... Are you certain it'd be wise to abandon corrupt systems if there is no better system to turn to, rather than attempt reform? Or, to put it differently, do you think it's better to dissolve the law when the law is wrong, rather than work within the law to make it right again?
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Lalo
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Bravo.
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Toretha
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Tres-they're untouchables. of course it wasn't extreme to the government, they don't care. It's comparable to the situation of whites and blacks precivil rights in many ways. Gandhi himself put a stop to legislation that would have given them more representation with his "fast unto death". What else could they have done?

It's awfully easy for you to condemn the actions-but what alternatives do you offer?

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Lalo
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Just, god, bravo. I'm proud of these women -- if there's some way to get money to them, I want to find it.

Complain away about vigilante justice, but god, this was needed. They're heroes. I just wish I could support them through this.

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ketchupqueen
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quote:
Extreme according to us and the women in question, but seemingly not extreme according to their government officials, or else they would have acted.

No, because the government officials were massively corrupt. Your equation does not take into effect imminent danger of loss of life, injury, the trauma of rape. If you have never been raped or no one has ever tried, you don't know what you do. Some people's instinct is to curl up into a ball and hope for the best. Others' instinct is to fight to the last breath-- either at the time or afterward-- anything they have to to try to avert the rape, but barring that, to survive, and then to get justice.
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Rico
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Xaposert:

Who said that the only alternative is to live with no society at all? Once you depose a corrupt society it's up to the people to rebuild it. Do you sincerely believe that humanity has been part of a "civil society" from the very beginning? Someone had to start it.

Rebuilding a society isn't easy, but it has been done numerous times throughout history. Germany has gone through radical changes, so has Japan. Look at them now.

I really don't subscribe to the ideology of having to live in a bad society because fixing it would require effort and hard work. Society wouldn't have advanced to the present point if everyone resigned themselves to conforming to the rules. Slavery, sexism, inequality, they all used to be the norms of society at one point.

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Jacare Sorridente
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The government failure to protect these women is inexcusable. I feel no remorse for the murder of a man who desrved death. The women were justified and should not be prosecuted.
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Toretha
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should be acquited after trial, I agree, but should not be prosecuted? I tend to disagree. It sounds like an opportunity for change to be effected, and that's much less likely to happen without trials and the publicity that would come from them.

Not prosecuting them is dangerous several ways: 1. it gives the police who laughed at them a better chance of avoiding reprisals. 2. it encourages mob justice, by saying actions won't be examined.

I'm totally with these women-but the thing needs to be taken to it's conclusion.

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Jacare Sorridente
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Toretha- good points.
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jeniwren
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The guy didn't watch enough Disney. He missed a valuable life lesson from Bug's Life, and consequently met the same end as his would-be hero, Stomper.
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Jacare Sorridente
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He got eaten by a bird?
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Xaposert
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quote:
It's awfully easy for you to condemn the actions-but what alternatives do you offer?
Well, he was in court at the time - they could have at least waited to see if they'd send him to jail, instead of assuming what the outcome would be. They also did burn his house down - they could have waited to see if this would be enough to force him to leave. They could have banded together to defend against him, should he return to their neighborhood. They could have tried any countless number of nonviolent or less violent methods of protest to force officials into action. Instead they assumed all of these would fail, because he had gotten away in the past and because they "heard" he'd get bail. They assumed they could not "live on this Earth together" with him, in a fit of anger spurred by his comments.

This does not appear to be a matter of having no other options. This seems to be a matter of being unwilling to wait to see if the legal process would succeed in the end - and perhaps also a matter of wanting a personal degree of revenge that the legal system would not provide.

quote:
No, because the government officials were massively corrupt. Your equation does not take into effect imminent danger of loss of life, injury, the trauma of rape.
I didn't disagree that this was, in fact, an extreme case. I'm just pointing out there are plenty of other people who think, rightly or wrongly, that they face extreme cases too - who are going to think their own governments are "massively corrupt" for ignoring their pleas. Do we really want them to abandon lawfulness whenever they feel this way?

quote:
Who said that the only alternative is to live with no society at all?
You said "I'd rather have no society than Hitler's society".
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Kwea
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Toretha, I agree completely.


I even think some punishment woudld be ok, just not treason as a charge.


Tres, in our society you would be right, but it took as years of violence to effect a chage even here in the US...it was called the Civil War.


What they did was horrible, but necessary..but that doesn't mean they should get off scott free either. I don't blame them at all, but in order for society to exist there has to be concequences for these types of actions. If not there is nothing to prevent Tres's society from occuring.


Of course, whatever happens I think the police officials that allowed this to happen should pay an equal, if not greater, penalty.

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camus
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Wow. I am so happy this matter was finally handled by those women, but it pains me to think about how many other people might be facing a similar situation but without the power to stop it.
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Telperion the Silver
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quote:
Originally posted by rivka:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Shan:
Oh, I dunno - it's pretty standard Old Testament "eye for an eye" and all that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Except that was never meant literally . . .
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I have a hard time believing this is meant to be taken figuratively. There are many many cases of God requiring death for certain crimes. I think that the wrong way to take this verse is to think that vengeance can be taken without the case going to trial. At least that's how I read the chapter. In this verse, a pregnant woman is hit and a judge is to determine the penalty. If she is not harmed than the penalty is a fine. If she is harmed than the penalty is life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burn for burn, etc. How do you see it?

My interpretation is based on the Exodus passage, but Leviticus and Deuteronomy also have this passage without the specific case being mentioned. But they go into more detail of how the judgement process is to be carried out.

Just to point out... the "Eye for an eye" thing was actually from the Code of Hammurabi, not the Jews. And it was literal. It was actually a call for moderation...because the way things used to be handled before the Code was "Your whole family for an eye". Any insult or infraction by one person on another was usually responded to with murder and other horrors, far in excess of the original affront.
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jeniwren
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Jacare, your response actually made me laugh out loud, which is horribly inappropriate for this thread, but there you are. Just glad I wasn't drinking anything at the time.
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Toretha
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Tres-why wait again? they said he'd been arrested and released before. Having seen that, having been blamed by officials for what was done to them, waiting for the legal process would simply mean another person raped or dead to them. The police were on his side, and protected him. If waiting looks like it will just buy you more injured people, why should they?

Again, I emphasis their caste. The legal system has a long history of ignoring and abusing them. Having seen it fail before with this man, why should they wait? Why should they think this time they'd be protected and treated like people despite their caste, when all evidence was against it?

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Tresopax
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quote:
If waiting looks like it will just buy you more injured people, why should they?
Because the alternative was apparently MURDER. It's worth the wait to avoid having to kill him.

And they don't have to sit by idle in the meanwhile. There's quite a bit of middle ground between just letting him rape again as he pleases and killing him in court - and that middle ground includes placing pressure on the police to do its job. There's no reason to think not killing him would have to ensure he rapes and injures again.

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pH
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How would you suggest that they "put pressure on the police?"

-pH

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Rakeesh
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quote:
Because the alternative was apparently MURDER. It's worth the wait to avoid having to kill him.
Bullshit. I know the profanity is frowned upon here, but that's just a disgusting statement, Tresopax.

One of two things are true here, Tresopax. Either you didn't read the article (the police were in the pocket of this man, you fool! How exactly do you go about pressuring someone so blatantly corrupt, when they and everyone you could turn to spit on you?!), or you think tolerating guaranteed further rape and torture is acceptable instead of killing the man who has done it before and will do it again.

Now here's where you get to say, "Well, we don't know he would do it again!" and, "There must have been another way!" Well, you dont' know jack about another way, Tresopax. How often have you been threatened with rape? How many times have one of your female loved ones been raped in front of you, in your home, and you couldn't do anything to stop it? How often after this happened did you go to the police and hear your sister / mother / daughter / niece was just a slut who got what she had coming to her?

Tell me, please. Please, from what font of experience and knowledge does this come from? You weren't there. You don't know any of the victims (and no, this man was not a victim, though of course you'll say otherwise). Have you ever spent a day in India? How much do you know about police corruption in India? What do you know about the untouchables status in India?

I'll bet the answer to almost, if not just plain all of those questions is some variation of plain nothing. Please, show me I'm wrong.

Now it's come to, "Don't kill to stop from being raped. That's ANARCHY! Trust in the system to protect you instead of killing to stop rape. After all, are you sure you're not better off being raped than taking action into your own hands?"

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Rakeesh
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Oh, there is a third option. You just don't believe what was plainly obvious to everyone but you in your ivory tower. There was METRIC FREAKING TONS of reasons to think that there was no middle ground. I'm ashamed to be a man when another man tells a woman, "Be raped. Don't kill the guy."
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Foust
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I'll have to agree with Rakeesh, Tres. This man proved beyond any reasonable doubt his total inability to live with others, and the legal system proved beyond any reasonable doubt its total and complete rejection of justice.

This man was truly varelse; good riddance to him.

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Dan_raven
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quote:
Well, he was in court at the time - they could have at least waited to see if they'd send him to jail, instead of assuming what the outcome would be. They also did burn his house down - they could have waited to see if this would be enough to force him to leave. They could have banded together to defend against him, should he return to their neighborhood. They could have tried any countless number of nonviolent or less violent methods of protest to force officials into action. Instead they assumed all of these would fail, because he had gotten away in the past and because they "heard" he'd get bail. They assumed they could not "live on this Earth together" with him, in a fit of anger spurred by his comments.

This does not appear to be a matter of having no other options. This seems to be a matter of being unwilling to wait to see if the legal process would succeed in the end - and perhaps also a matter of wanting a personal degree of revenge that the legal system would not provide.

Tres, lets see if I can put this less robustly than Rakeesh.

I have friends in India, and in Punjab itself. The court system there is corrupt. Money, not evidence, is the prime weight in their scales of justice. Organized thugs have it, the poorest of the poor do not.

True he was in court, but it was a court that had repeatedly let him go on bail. That does not mean the same thing as in our courts. There bail meant, "we think you are guilty, but we won't go to court for 20 or 30 years. Until then you are free to go as long as you give this court the appropriate cash."

quote:
Yadav spotted one of the women he had
raped. He called her a prostitute and threatened to
repeat the crime against her. The police laughed.

Here he was, going to court with police protection around him, theatening to re-rape a woman when, not if, he was freed. There seems to be little doubt that he was a)going to get free and b)regardless of the destruction of his property, going to return to his former business plan of abuse, rape, and murder to rule his little kingdom. This seems more like self-defense than murder.

quote:
Residents say he murdered at least three neighbours
and dumped their bodies on railway tracks. They had
reported his crimes to the police dozens of times.
Each time he was arrested, he was granted bail.

He was a murderer. He killed people and left their bodies on the tracks to be mutilated beyond evidence by the trains. This is a common murder tactic in train-heavy India.

If your society allows you to be murdered then I believe it is time to change that society. If the only way to change that society is to destroy it, then its self defense to destroy it.

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Xaposert
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quote:
Well, you dont' know jack about another way, Tresopax. How often have you been threatened with rape? How many times have one of your female loved ones been raped in front of you, in your home, and you couldn't do anything to stop it? How often after this happened did you go to the police and hear your sister / mother / daughter / niece was just a slut who got what she had coming to her?

Tell me, please. Please, from what font of experience and knowledge does this come from? You weren't there. You don't know any of the victims (and no, this man was not a victim, though of course you'll say otherwise). Have you ever spent a day in India? How much do you know about police corruption in India? What do you know about the untouchables status in India?

I'll bet the answer to almost, if not just plain all of those questions is some variation of plain nothing. Please, show me I'm wrong.

How often have YOU been raped? When have YOU been an Untouchable in India? If you believe it's not possible to understand anything about this situation without actually having lived through it, please stop discussing it (and definitely stop acting as if you are CERTAIN what situation these women faced), because you have experienced it no more than I have.

If you believe its possible to speculate about situations without actually going through them first, then we can continue the discussion.

quote:
True he was in court, but it was a court that had repeatedly let him go on bail. That does not mean the same thing as in our courts. There bail meant, "we think you are guilty, but we won't go to court for 20 or 30 years. Until then you are free to go as long as you give this court the appropriate cash."
Still, it is not safe to assume the same thing that happened in the past would just happen again - especially if murder is on the line. Keep in mind that this time, presumably unlike previous instances, there was an angry mob in the courtroom to put pressure on the court to do its job or risk serious trouble. The police clearly also realized his life was at risk if they released him. Furthermore, there seemed to be at least one significant official who was concerned for the women:

quote:
Narayane and her brother-in-law bypassed the local officers and went straight to the deputy commissioner. He gave the family a safe house for a night and promised to search for him.
On top of that, even if it were CERTAIN that the court would do nothing, that does not mean more rapes was a certaintly or even a likelihood. There are methods of preventing rape besides sending the rapist to jail. Given they burned his house down and he went into hiding, he could have been scared off. And given that they were already banded together against him, they could have ensured he didn't give any more opportunities to rape them. Or they could have further fought against the government until the police backed down and gave in to their demands - governments everywhere want to avoid trouble. These methods would probably have been even more effective, given that this guy sounds like he had others helping him, who were apparently not murdered when he was - and who could thus pick up where he left off, until the system itself actually changes.

quote:
If the only way to change that society is to destroy it, then its self defense to destroy it.
If the situation has really reached that point, then perhaps it was right for them to ignore law altogether. However, I'm not convinced the only way to fix the Indian system of government is to destroy it altogether and start again from scratch. I think that would likely just make them worse off - subject even more to the whim of thugs.
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Rakeesh
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You know what, Tresopax, forget it...your speculation involves, "Just wait and hope for the best. If you get raped again..well, hey, at least you're not *gasp* killing someone!"

Even a piece of crap scum of the earth petty tyrant who rapes and destroys and ruins for a living. I'm not surprised that you're chastising the victims in this situation from on high, as usual.

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Olivet
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Take it easy Rakeesh. The world is a very easy place to understand, when looking at it through your own intestinal wall. There's no point in arguing. *pat, pat*
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ketchupqueen
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*snort* *collapses* Sorry, Livvy, I couldn't help it. You're so funny! [Kiss]
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Xaposert
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quote:
your speculation involves, "Just wait and hope for the best. If you get raped again..well, hey, at least you're not *gasp* killing someone!"
No more than your speculation involves "Just start a lynch mob to kill anyone who bothers you." Strawmen can go both ways.

As I said, there's a wide wide area between "just waiting" and starting a lynch mob to murder the guy. It's similar to the logic that the only two options are invading Iraq and doing nothing - a thinking which has resulted in disaster so far. Looking only at the extreme options tends to result in trouble - and for these women it's probably going to result in some of them going to jail (unless India really takes notice of this, which is somewhat doubtful I think), or being retaliated against by the police and friends of this man. For the man it has meant death.

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Rakeesh
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My speculation isn't a strawmen, because they already tried the 'go through proper channels' option. They had zero reason to believe that continuing to rely upon police would yield results. Banding together...oh, that's rich, and what do they do when he brings his thugs over with guns?

You're right about one, just one, thing at least. There is a wide area, and they traversed it. They started a lynch mob after that, remember? I expect it doesn't matter to you. From your ivory tower, I guess little details like that get missed.

Oh, and just for rhetorical purposes...that wasn't a man.

-------

I'm not sure if I've been chastised or not, but it was very funny, heh.

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pH
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Okay, seriously, what do you mean by "not giving him more opportunities to rape them?"

It's not like his rapes were confined solely to women walking alone in dark alleys at night. He was raping them IN THEIR HOMES.

-pH

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Olivet
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Yeah, pH. Surely it would be simple to avoid the henchmen coming to your house and dragging your 12 year old daughter out for a gang rape. I mean, all you have to is... Um, let's see...

*see previous post*

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