Aarushi murder case -A media circus-2

Somebody must educate the Indian police with a lot of things. This was the messiest investigation I ever saw on television. I blame the media badgering to a large extent. It put too much pressure on the police and the limelight was disturbing to say the least. It was disturbing to me as a viewer to have to see the same thing over and over and again and again and that too the first thing in the headlines as if this was the only thing happening in the country. I can well imagine how it must’ve been more than a bit of harassment for the Noida police to have the media around them like a potential noose that can turn into a knot any instant. Having said that, the police were at their unethical best as usual.
Do the Noida police or whoever has been doing these investigations know the definition of “honor killing”? Honor killing is a very patriarchal convention committed usually against a woman - a wife, daughter or a sister in highly charged social contexts like in a village or tribe for example where you’ve to show that you’re a man by murdering the person that violated your honor. You may have strong personal feelings of love for your wife, daughter or sister but you won’t let that come in the way of your honor which is connected to the group you belong to. That’s what it means.
In the case of Arushi’s murder there is no “honor” involved. She is just too damn young and there is no lover or boyfriend and no social context here. The police theory about the father’s affair and the daughter knowing it and the closeness with the servant and the father being upset – it sounds embarrassing close to a C-grade Bollywood movie that probably bankrupted the director and producer and left the actors without any work for the rest of their lives. Assuming the police are right, the motive is jealousy or intense possessiveness that drove the father into an insane rage that killed the daughter and the servant who dared to appropriate the father’s favorite possession. How does that make it a “honor killing?”
Even more unconvincing is the mother who seems non-existent in all of this drama. It’s like she is a brick or a stone or something worse – an alien from another planet bereft of any human feelings or a robot completely at the mercy of a remote control in the hands of the husband. From her interview on NDTV it did not seem that she was without any personality. But to the misogynistic police her non-existence was perfectly in tune with what they assume had happened.
In the movie “Witness for the Prosecution” based on Agatha Christie’s short story and play, Sir Wilfrid Robarts, the brilliant criminal lawyer, fighting on behalf of Leonard Vole, a criminal accused of the murder of a rich older woman, remains unconvinced with the neatness of the evidence that leads to the verdict of “not guilty”. As in art so in life. That’s the problem with the Arushi murder case. Everything is too cut and dry. Too simple and too obvious. I sincerely think the media should leave the police alone with their investigations even if it takes months or years. What in effect the media is doing is forcing the police to come up with results. As far as I can see such pressure is going to have disastrous consequences as it has already done and somebody innocent might have to pay a bitter price for it. In this case it could be the grief-stricken father of the child. The police have not only killed his honor and said terrible things about the child but might end up doing worse which is to send the man to prison or the gallows without really having discovered the truth.
Listening to the police was torture. Unscientific and sloppy apart, the arrogance was stunning. It looks like they were the invisible spectators to the murder who suddenly decided to become visible. With their limited evidence the police indulged in speculation that even Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes would not dare embark upon. One thing a serious cop or detective would never do is assume or arrive at conclusions based on assumptions. Assumptions produce more assumptions but not necessarily the truth. The police made enough assumptions in this case to make all the episodes of a flop TV series. Far from honor the murder has all the ingredients of revenge killing. “Revenge is a kind of wild justice” says Francis Bacon. In my view as an avid reader of detective novels such cold-bloodedness with which the servant and the young girl were murdered is possible where revenge is the motive. The role of the servant is far from minimal though what the police were insinuating about something going on between the young girl and the middle-aged man is rubbish. This is assumption and speculation.
What is terrible is that the tragedy of the double murder of the young girl and the servant is for sale. That’s what is terrible. Sex and lies appeal to basic instincts of viewers. The media and the police are part of this sale. This is how it is with the American media. Everything is an event and nothing is beyond sale. I was a student in 1995 during the O.J. Simpson murder trial. I’ve never seen anything sicker in my life. Just that people don’t matter as human beings. In a deeply racist nation even the truth is black and white. The worst part is the indoctrinated viewer – the average American – gorging media lies as if it were the absolute truth. If there are countless other reasons why I would never live in the United States the media is definitely one of them. That’s the direction we seem to be going these days