Chronicle of a Death foretold

Pic courtesy: Nathan G

I revisited the place of my birth after many years earlier this week, courtesy of an assignment to cover the abduction and murder of two schoolchildren, and the subsequent public outrage and encounter of the prime accused. Thanks to our awesomely incommodious Tuesday deadline, I had just about a day to gather up interviews, and a day to whip out 1700 words. Which were whittled down by half here. 

There were parts they left out that I considered important to the story, though. For instance, the role the media played in further whetting the public appetite for summary justice, as was borne out by the feeding frenzy which occurred every time the accused made a public appearance, and faced a seething crowd clamouring to lynch them. So I'm posting a few lopped off bits here: 

                                                                                

On Rangai Gounder Street, headlines spoke of residents distributing sweets, and bursting crackers, declaring: “This is our real Deepavali, as the demon Narakasuran has been slain.” As the 1000-walas sputtered out, none of the celebrants ventured near the victims’ family’s home, which remained bolted, and silent. Jayanthi, a young goldsmith who lives in a small house around the corner says, “The media people came here the day after the encounter. They asked us if we were happy. We said we were. They asked if this was our real Deepavali. We said it was. So they said, well why don’t you burst crackers then? They bought a 1000-wala, put a matchbox in my hand, and said, ‘There, now celebrate!’” So the crackers and cameras flared up together, and Jayanthi was immortalised celebrating the “demon’s death” in a Tamil daily the next day. “I heard they also stopped a bus that was passing by and distributed Mysorepa, but I wasn’t there then,” she adds, with a twinge of regret. 

[Politicians, with an eye on the May elections, joining in the public breast-beating] 

Today, Rangai Gounder's narrow lanes are wallpapered with posters adorned with portraits of the two dead children, flanked by the ubiquitous teardrops, and a roll-call of incongruously grinning politicians-- the UPA, the Shiv Sena, and Congress MLA Kovai Thangam, who lauded the police action in the State Legislature. There are also motley groups expressing their commiseration through dubious poetry. “My heart is aching when I think of you,” goes one by Dalit Panthers leader Thol. Thirumavalavan. “My teardrops turn into flowers, and I lay these on your grave.” A poster by the ‘45th Division’ of common people says: “You’ll go with anyone who calls you. But you knew it was Yama, calling you, so why did you go?”

                                                                      
[Ire over anyone unwilling to "celebrate" the encounter killing of the accused] 

On the same day, outside the District Court Complex in Coimbatore, 20 advocates protested the killing, with posters which declared: ‘Stop encounter culture’ and ‘The court should punish the accused, not the police’. The next day, posters and handouts around the area provided 9 of their names and numbers, exhorting the public to “teach these black sheep in black coats a lesson”, and to “show these monsters what human rights really is, in our own language, if they gather in a public place again.”   

R Nikkolaus, an advocate and activist with People’s Watch, is one of the “monsters” the pamphlet wants to see punished. He believes it’s authored by the Intelligence wing of the police, but blames the media for the public’s loss of faith in the legal system, its appetite for summary justice, and its blind, emotional fury towards those who question it. “They’ve got to be neutral, but they go along blindly with the police version,” he says. “The Dinamalar website has a public poll: ‘What should be done with Manoharan, the second accused? 1. Encounter 2. Hanging 3. Life imprisonment. Vote and decide.’ How can they decide the culprit? But I won’t be surprised if there’s a story which comes out, saying he was found hanging in his cell.”   

“It’s dangerous to allow the police to take on the larger than life role of cleansers of public morality,” concurs V Suresh of People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Chennai, who calls the encounter “fake at its worst” and “a cock and bull story”, says the police is functioning like a ‘katta panchayat’-- a system of parallel justice, granted by a local goon. “It’s only in these extreme crime circumstances do they come up trumps, otherwise no citizen is safe when they even go to a local police station to register a complaint.”