On the surface this might look like yet another case of gang-rape.  Another minor assaulted by a bunch of pervert criminals.
But is there is a silver lining? Let’s first get the news.

Mother Takes Son to Police for Allegedly Raping Minor

All India | Press Trust of India | Updated: September 06, 2014 15:33 IST

CANNING, WEST BENGAL: A young bus conductor from West Bengal was arrested by the police for allegedly raping a minor girl near a school after his mother complained to the police.

Ainur Bibi lodged a complaint against her son Najir Seikh at the Diamond Harbour police station in the South 24-Parganas district after rescuing the seven-year-old girl yesterday, a senior police official said.

According to the police, Ainur Bibi came to know about the incident after Nazir talked about it after returning home in a drunk state.

Najir and three others had allegedly raped the Class 1 student when she had gone outside the school to urinate as the school toilet was closed. She was left unconscious near a bush.

“After hearing about the incident, Ainur Bibi rushed to rescue the girl. She took the girl to Diamond Harbour hospital and then lodged a complaint against her son with the police,” the official said.

The family members of the girl were unaware of the incident when Ainur Bibi took the girl to the hospital and later reached the police station.

How significant is this whole incidence?

First it re-emphasizes the need for toilet facilities in school, especially for girl students.

Besides being a major cause of girl student‘s drop out from schools, lack of the privacy of a toilet has forced a vast section of our women population to continue this undignified practice, increasing their vulnerability to sexual predators. 

Just the other day, on an ‘uncharacteristic’ use of the Independence Day speech platform, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi dared to touch on such unglamorous topics as female feticide, dignity and security of women and challenged the government and corporate world to rise to the occasion and do the minimum to provide toilets in all school within the time frame of one year, specially keeping the girl students in mind.

As an extension, a goal has been set for every house to have toilet & safe drinking water facility by 2019.

Secondly, this incidence opens our eyes to the appeal that the Prime Minister made to all parents. “Parents ask their daughters hundreds of questions, but have any parents ever dared to ask their son as to where he is going, why he is going out, who his friends are. After all, a rapist is also somebody’s son … .. if every parent decides to impose as many restrictions on the sons as have been imposed on our daughters – try to do this with your sons, try to ask such questions of them.”

How better can a mother respond to such a clarion call than what Ainur Bibi did?

How can one judge her as a mother? Can we criticize her for failing to protect and shield her son from the law? Or should be salute her for having the courage to try to bring her son back to the right path, to educate and make him more humane?

Thirdly, is this a kind of news that should be spread as an example? Should this lady be felicitated? Should her story be allowed to reach each and every home in the country? Should the media promote it with an equal vigor of a Shah Rukh movie or a comparable glory of a Sachin Tendulker century?

Dr A. P.J. Kalam, our president reportedly, once lamented, “Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements?”

Should our media, busy is raising issues and criticizing, alleged often with obvious bias and vested interest, for once, rise to the occasion and take the responsibility and challenge to make Ainur Bibi a household name so that more and more parents take a renewed interest in building the life of their children and in the process, build the nation, one person at a time.

May be then we can hope for a modified India, in not so far a future.
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