Though true, that recent convictions in the Priyadarshini Mattoo and Jessica Lall cases did, to some extent, restore faith in the judiciary, whom exactly did they restore the faith to. From a situation where even the middle and upper middle classes had lost confidence in the system, yes that confidence was certainly restored.

But till now they too were dispossessed as far as influence on the state machinery was concerned. Maybe our society was far more equal in its own skewed way. It equally dispossessed everyone if you were not rich enough, not powerful enough, not influential enough. So while having rectified the anomalies of earlier distorted judgements, these convictions have actually rocked the balance of the disenfranchised as now it is the under-privileged, who continue to remain outside the orbit of justice. While the kidnapped son of a high-profile, software professional was recovered within a few days, the same men in the khaki could only recover the decapitated body of the 13-year old son of a less affluent lab assistant from Lucknow.

Neglect

That the same news channels, who threw caution to modesty with ceaseless, oversized dollops of self-congratulatory programmes on both Jessica and Mattoo cases have clearly chosen to ignore this divide in their own programming brings home a rather grim reality. Are crimes against the underprivileged important only for reams of footage on sensational crime shows? Over three dozen children have gone missing within a 100 metre radius of a village adjacent to the posh Sector 31 colony of Noida in less than three years. One child going missing every month from the same area. Could this have happened if the children were not those of poor labourers but of residents of the affluent neighbourhood?

The police turned these hapless parents away saying that their children had eloped. Consequently, only 19 FIRs of the 38 missing children were registered. Even if the child is a runaway, is it not imperative to check with whom and under what circumstances an underage child has run-off? Could the police have gotten away, unscathed, with such an approach towards any other social class? Images of protests by the parents of the victims only confirm their maltreatment at the hands of the police. While many governments actually spend state money on counselling parents of such victims, here was a police woman brutally manhandling the mother of a slain child.

The sorrow of victims’ families — irrespective of the social strata — remains the same. But imagine the agony of a family where an entire system chooses not to recognise their trauma at all. Are children of illegal immigrants faceless entities? Just because you do not have papers confirming your legal status are you to be deprived of justice?

Interestingly, the Noida police has a scheme, “Cops Online” to pursue cases received via SMS. With one constable per 277 residents, of which nearly 50 per cent are involved in VIP duties, perhaps the remaining were busy attending these SMSes.

Voyeurism?

Not very far from Nithari are offices of channels and production houses — many dealing with crime-related shows. Are we merely becoming voyeurs and these new channels outlets for our voyeurism? What makes it okay for cameras to infringe the privacy of victimised homes for gruesome and insensitive details — almost always accompanied by barely fudged images of both the criminal and the victims? Are violations of private spaces concepts to be relegated while dealing with the less privileged? And with the justification for every such intrusion implicit in the interviewee’s response, “The police are uncooperative…”. The programme ends on another self-congratulatory note of an expose on a system gone wrong.

The horror of a criminal act is determined less by its brutality and more by the socio-economic section it brutalised. So, for those at the far, bottom-end of the ladder, not only is justice out of reach but there is barely anyone to even give them a voice. No media-sponsored campaigns for them. Just a camera in their faces asking them to relive their trauma again and again ... and again.