'Exposed' to the voyeur

I ndia has never been short of shocking incidents that lay out the desensitised people of the country in the open. Barely had reports about Pinki Pramanik subsided, when out came reports of a girl in Guwahati being molested and her video clip (made by a journalist) circulated all over the satellite channels.

Just how viral these cases have become online, is evident from the fact that if you Google ‘Guwahati girl’, it auto-prompts ‘Guwahati girl molested video’! Goo­g­­ling Pinki Pramanik gives you an auto-prompt of ‘Pinki Pramanik video’.

Metrolife talked to a few youngsters to find out if violation of Pinki’s privacy can in any way be justified? Does her ‘crime’ absolve those who made a video of her tests and circulated it as an MMS? Is there no respect for a girl’s privacy anymore?
Crude as it may sound, you would think that levels of exposure in today’s age of technology may just be enough to assuage a voyeur’s dirty gaze. But no, the perversion persists with callous disregard.

Pratishtha Petwal, a student of Psychology at Jesus and Mary College, says, “It’s a shame and a disgrace that women are being treated like this. Even during her tests, Pin­ki was treated like an animal. Does a case being filed against her, give cops and medical authorities the right to harass her? This is a very sorry state of affairs.” 

What is worse is that Pinki’s video was made in a place where she should have felt
secure and her privacy respected. Sonika Singh who has just finished school, fumes, “Considering that it was a nursing home where the MMS was taken, it’s atrocious. It’s really sad that women are not safe anywhere.”

Stuti Govil, a collegiate, is infuriated too. “There is nothi­ng new about the way her ordeal has been filmed and circ­u­lated. I don’t buy the idea of Show and Tell and calling it ‘Reporting the gruesome injustice’ happening the country. The perversity is amplified each time you click open a video like that. It is sick that we need to be reminded of what an ‘ordeal’ is by watching a video.

When we watch a video, we are a desensitised mind watching it. Hence, it never occurs to us to be offended or angry but that doesn’t take away the fact that a voyeur is a voyeur,” she says.

Anger apart, Aditya Kumar, engineering student at DCE, is shocked, “It’s unbelievable! If you Google Pinki’s name, the fifth result in the search is “31 torrents found for Pinki Parmanik MMS”! Where’s the government now?”

Atanu Bhuyan, editor-in-chief of the channel that first aired the molestation visuals, resigned from his post on Tuesday afternoon. But nothing can justify or make up for the shame and embarrassm­ent caused to the girls.