Women do not protect other women.

What a start to the new year. In Assam a woman was fighting for her life after being repeatedly raped by a trader who then discarded her at a deserted place. The poor woman had gone to apply for a job at a government school and was abducted on her way back. In Odisha a woman, running a fair price or ration shop, was stabbed repeatedly, when on her way back home, by 4 men, who wanted her to give up the shop. They then poured kerosene over her and set her on fire. She had been receiving threatening letters and phone calls for some time but probably could not abandon her source of livelihood. Whether she had asked the police for protection we do not know but we do know that the police in India are brutal gangs in uniform who prefer to serve as thugs for politicians rather than serve the people. The case of a 16 year old girl who was burnt to death on 23 December, after being gang-raped on 26 October 2013, in Kolkata vividly illustrates how the police will assault an innocent even after death on the orders of politicians. First they did nothing to punish the rapists and then when the girl was murdered by the same men, who had been pressuring her to withdraw her complaint, they tried to snatch her body and quickly cremate her to prevent any protests from her family. At post mortem the girl was found to be pregnant so 2 lives were lost. Rape seems to have become a routine occurrence in Kolkata, once considered one of the safest cities in India, since Ms Mamata Banerjee became Chief Minister. She famously said that the rape on Park Street last year was a conspiracy against her government and transferred DIG Damyanti Sen from Crime to Training department because she dared to prove that the rape had actually taken place. Whereas women did not worry about being out late in the evenings in Kolkata today they are afraid. Sheila Dixit was the Chief Minister of Delhi when Jyoti was so viciously gang-raped in a bus she died. When people came out to protest they were brutally beaten up and falsely charged with the death of a policeman who had died of a heart attack. Delhi is also the residence of the Congress President Ms Sonia Gandhi. We are told by feminists that women would make better leaders because they are caring and have greater empathy. Sadly, in India, women in power are not safer for ordinary women.