"CHANGE THE SYSTEM"
The fact that RK Sharma walked free last week in the Shivani murder case proves that our system is lopsided
It is not unheard of people being picked up by the police from anywhere and put behind bars for no fault of theirs. The practice is becoming common. The sad part is that the person is not given an opportunity to prove his innocence. Added to the woes is that if there is no one to help, the onus to defend falls on the person and that, too, from behind the bars!
There have been instances where people have been picked up on grounds of allegations, suspicion or enmity. I know of many people where the cops because of their own lack of knowledge or because they were towing some powerful man’s line have randomly picked up people for questioning. Last week, former police officer RK Sharma walked free after the Delhi High Court acquitted him and two other co-accused because the evidence against them was not convincing enough. I am neither accusing him nor defending him. Nor am I talking about whether he is innocent or guilty. My point is that if he is innocent then who is responsible for the 12 years he spent behind bars away from his family. It is said that the CBI’s conviction rate is only 25 per cent.
Many would blame the lopsided system that exists in our country. Well, it is high time that the Government change it because no system in the world has the right to put an innocent man behind bars for a crime that he has not committed. To add to the problem, the media today has donned the role of pronouncing the person ‘guilty’ even before the trial begins. And if the person happens to be well-known, the media has more food for fodder. They will not only hound him, his family, friend’s and even servant’s will not be spared. It is therefore, very important that the cops and the investigating agency need to be extremely sensitive while handling cases, especially when a murder is involved.
Coming back to the High Court’s verdict of freeing Sharma. The fact that he has walked free created quite a stir. The people are confused. Who is to be blamed for not having produced enough evidence against the person who was directly linked to Shivani Bhatnagar’s murder? And if Sharma was guilty why did he walk free? At one level, one feels sorry for his family. The humiliation that it faced almost 10 years ago continues with his release. My heart goes out for his wife and children. How they must have spent these years — to be looked upon as the wife of a murderer, to be labeled as children of a murderer. Sharma belongs to an educated family. If he had continued to serve, he may have reached a top rank. If a person with his connections can be punished for over a decade for a crime that he did not commit, what about the plight of the aam admi?
What kind of a system do we live in today? If a person is guilty, he walks free and a person who is innocent continues to be behind bars. Thousands of innocent people are behind bars for a crime they didn’t commit. A popular saying — justice delayed is justice denied — is apt.
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