Life is very cheap.

Four men accused of murdering a teenage boy, Adnan Patrawala in 2007 walked free from a Mumbai court yesterday as the prosecution failed " miserably " to prove its case. The prosecution case was that Adnan met the 4 accused after becoming friendly with them on a social networking site. They forced him to drink some drugs and then strangled him. The plan was to demand a ransom of Rs 20 million for Adnan but when they saw the news of his kidnapping on TV they left the body in Adnan's car and fled. This has become the norm in India.In 1999 Shivani Bhatnagar, a journalist was murdered in her flat and an IPS officer, RK Sharma was suspected. He went on the run but finally surrendered in Ambala. A lower court found Sharma and 3 others guilty of murder and sentenced them to life but they were freed by the Delhi High Court in 2011. Manu Sharma, son of a Congress politician in Haryana was freed from charges of murdering Jessica Lall although he shot her in a bar in front of many witnesses who were threatened into silence. A public outcry resulted in a new trial and Sharma was sentenced to life only to be released repeatedly by Delhi politicians for frivolous reasons like attending marriages of relatives. Rathore was released after a derisory 6 months when he had used the police force under his command to drive Ruchika Girhotra to suicide by hounding her brother. The politicians have ensured that we have a corrupt, brutal and inept police force that they can control to their advantage. But what about the prosecution lawyers and the judges? Are they entirely kosher? Are they not involved in unnecessarily prolonging a trial for years so that witnesses can be silenced with threat or money? In Kashmir, Education Minister, Peerzada Saeed of the Congress is alleged to have arranged for an official in his department to write part of an Urdu paper for his son. Earlier, GM Saroor, also of the Congress, was forced to resign after helping his daughter to pass a qualifying exam for medical college by cheating. Apparently Dow Chemical, sponsor of the London Olympics, has been selling tens of millions of dollars worth of Union Carbide products in India under its brand name. TOI, January 31. At times it seems that every Indian is for sale no matter what the consequences for the nation. No sharam, no izzat.