24

Sep

This ‘breaking news’ should not break families 

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Amitabh Srivastava 

New Delhi | Thursday | September 24, 2026

What happened to the two teenagers in Jamui (Bihar) returning after their coaching class is nothing short of horrific.

The teenagers were returning on their scooty after their coaching class when they were surrounded by a gang of hoodlums who found the young and nebulous school children easy prey.

They not only stopped and mocked them for being together but one of them even dared to literally kidnap the girl by picking her up and carrying her away.

In this hopeless situation her companion did not run away but chased the man telling and pleading with him to release her.

For me that was the shining moment of unadulterated heroism in that traumatic situation which was flashed across various news channels.

It was officially noticed by the Bihar Police after Rahul Gandhi flashed the video and made it national news.

Three persons have been arrested and a hunt is on for the others.

This news will be forgotten soon by the Media, always waiting for ‘breaking news.’

But what about their parents, grandparents and newly sprouted group of well-wishers of their famlies? 

I had not heard of Jamui till last year but now it has a special place in my heart since I happen to be Chairman of the Jan Shikshan Sansthan there.

It was in that capacity I had visited Jamui this August and had toured the area to talk to various entrepreneurs,mostly women and trainees who had been empowered by the JSS to start their own start ups.

Most trainees I met had impressed me by their guts and determination to start a new life by coming to training centres and returning home by 5 or 6 pm which was sort of an unofficial curfew time. Now I know why.

It was very tempting to make this a political harangue and attack the ruling regime as many are doing.

But then I started thinking like a parent and a grandparent. I started thinking about my own life, my transition from a boy from Azamgarh transplanted to Delhi when I was hardly six or seven.

Put into a co- ed English medium school by my father at that impressionable age my behaviour and my thoughts started evolving sub consciously.

From school to college in Delhi University, which was again a co-ed college, I grew up respecting women, even competing with them with a healthy mind.

But it was not so easy for my sister.

When my grandmother came to live with us in Delhi she asked my father to put my sister in an exclusive girls school which he obediently did. No arguments with parents in those days.

And then into a girls college.

I did not like this segregation because I have always felt having boys around as friends is always safer, even if it sounds anti feminist in Delhi.

I still do.

But after 50 years, going through a lot of conversations on Facebook and other so-called ‘social media’ platforms since yesterday, I notice a familiar pattern of people blaming them for being together.

I am sure the neighbours of the girl must be telling her parents the same thing.

Instead of thanking the boy for his bravery and guts for standing up against goons they would be questioning the girl why she went to another spot for clicking photographs before returning home.

(Such information is now being leaked to a pliant media by an embarrassed Bihar Police, which has also been telling the various electronic media to delete the video of the incident citing provisions of Child Protection rules).

I will not be surprised if her parents stop sending her to the coaching centre and even change her school or even the city to ‘hide the public shaming’.

But let me remind all parents,grandparents and social commentators that the same argument (why are you out with a boy at this time) was used by the wretch Ram Singh, driver of the bus who assaulted Jyoti Singh (Nirbhaya) when she boarded a bus home with a male companion after watching a movie on December 16,2012 at Munirka.

There is no end to such nonsense to hide the failure of the state in performing its duty.When Indian women have started  breaking all barriers in achieving impossible targets including physically draining tasks, winning medals in Wrestling and Boxing and taking up professions like the Army and driving trucks, the responsibility of the State and its people must be to make them feel safe and comfortable as equal citizens and not to show them down for something they had no control on-being born as a female.

(Amitabh Srivastava is a Senior Journalist and Social Activist) 
 

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