Why blame the victim?

Soumya Vishwanathan, a 25-year old TV journalist is shot dead at 3.30 AM in Delhi. The police have no clue what could have happened, no eye witnesses have come up, so far and just about everything is speculation… I feel shock and dismay at the pretty young thing’s murder.

But there is fuming rage when I think about Sheila Dixit's frivolous remark! How can Dixit, a woman herself and the CM at that, even think in such terms—that it was ‘adventurous’ on the part of the victim to drive home alone at such an hour.

Why blame the victim when as CM you can't provide safety to the citizens? How much better would it have been if Soumya was murdered in her own house?

But to call driving home from work adventurous (whether the woman clarifies that she meant for both men and women) is merely an outrageous attempt to hide the truth—that the city is not safe at all for anyone.

That there is NO law and order situation in Delhi.

Tomorrow, maybe a businessMAN driving home late could be killed. Will that also be termed adventurous on the victim's part? And two days later another MAN could be killed. Does it make the crime any less heinous if a man were so murdered?

When will this become an issue of addressing the law and order situation of the state?

Then to go on and say employers should address the safety of employees they keep for late night shifts. To what level, I ask? In a state where there is no law and order, how difficult is it for a gang of rowdies to ambush a vehicle that has the required escort and 'background-checked', clean driver (as in the case of call centres in Bangalore, Pune etc.) and kill, loot or rape?

This is just a game of passing the buck. And anyone who falls for such a cheap game should also be shot—point blank.