Readers respond: Drones and danda can’t enforce social distancing and more

Make the police and babus pay

A 27-year-old research scholar from Jamia Milia University, a woman who is going through her first pregnancy, was arrested on April 10 and was sent to Tihar Jail. The research scholar was at the forefront of anti-CAA protests but Delhi Police have accused her of conspiring and instigating the riots in East Delhi in the last week of February and has booked her under the draconian UAPA Act. Which means she cannot approach a court for the next two years and cannot apply for bail. She is not alone. Scores of activists, lawyers and teachers have been similarly booked under the directions of the Union Home Ministry and sent to jail during the lockdown. The Government has clearly chosen this time to settle scores when the attention of the people is focused on fighting the virus in order to deflect attention from the arrests. There is little doubt that most of these cases will fall through in the court, possibly after five or seven years. If and when they do, there should be some law to make policemen, lawyers of the state and Home ministry officials accountable. Even if they happen to have retired in the meanwhile, they should be made to pay for their action if the cases are not sustained. A law to confiscate their property and hand over their immovable assets to those they jailed would be poetic justice. But what does one do to judges who allow unfair detention without convincing and sustainable evidence?

Anonymous

Anti-lynching Act

In February this year the US House of Representatives had overwhelming voted to make lynching a federal hate crime. The move came 100 years after US lawmakers first attempted to criminalise lynching. The legislation was named after a black teenager whose murder spurred the Civil Rights movement in the fifties. The US Senate had passed the law in 2018. The two bills must now be combined before being signed into law by the US President. BBC had reported that at least 4,742 people were lynched in the US between 1882 and 1968. In 99% of cases the perpetrators escaped punishment. The situation in India is no less alarming. People are getting lynched on mere suspicion of theft, of cow slaughter, of lifting children for trafficking by blood thirsty mobs across the country. There is no need to communalise the issue but does India too have to wait for 100 years before making lynching a hate crime?

Vijay Purohit

Remove fear & distrust

There is apprehension of chaos and confusion, overcrowding in Managing the migrants who will return by trains and buses etc. once the lockdown is lifted. Above all there is fear and distrust. Little has been done to reassure the people though. A standard testing protocol and fever clinics need to be set up in every locality, where people with fever, cough etc. can report without fear. They should not be made to do so under duress. Nor should they be packed off like criminals to quarantine centres. COVID-19 patients have been stigmatised so much that even people who get cured are finding it difficult to return home. Neighbours are forcing these people to sell houses and move out. This needs to be stopped. How does the Government plan to do it? Unless people get rid of their irrational fear, nothing else will work. How will they deal with our overcrowded buses and trains?

(Dr) Nilu Ahluwalia

Drones and the danda

After spending a minor fortune on installing CCTV cameras ( there is yet no independent audit of their utility and no cost-benefit analysis) everywhere, the state appears to be revelling in using drones for surveillance, spraying disinfectants and issuing warnings. A footage grabbed by a drone in Ahmedabad was used by the police to book residents playing carrom on the terrace and a group of women chatting in the common area. Drones and the danda cannot enforce physical distancing—is something that our rulers are taking a little too long to understand.

Mihir Dholabhai