Earlier Friday, pictures of the men who molested a minor outside a bar in Guwahati were circulated on the Internet to hundreds of thousands of people. India Ink asked Kiran Bedi, the first woman officer in the Indian Police Service with a career spanning three decades, about social media and delivering justice. She responded via e-mail.

Illustration by A.U. Santhoshkumar

How has the task of finding and arresting men who are accused of molesting women changed over the last decade? Does social media help?

KIRAN Bedi.  Yes, social media helps create social awakening. It is the alarm setter because of which the police come under a scanner and have no choice but to perform. The police have to deliver, even if reluctantly at times, and shed its habit of only working for the V.I.P.’s under pressure.

Is an online anonymously filmed video permissible as evidence?

Yes, why shouldn’t it be? It is up to the courts to decide! Nothing bars it from being used.

Are there concerns that the picture like the one being circulated on Twitter of the alleged molesters could affect a case? Does it have legal ramifications?

This will make only one tool of evidence irrelevant, and that is the identification parade.

Will the rise of social media and mobile phones with cameras have a long- term impact on the problem of men molesting or harassing women on the streets in India?

It can act as small deterrent but not for long. So, serious molesters may use this as a warning to avoid being filmed in such situations.

But the problem has become so widespread that despite the risk of being filmed, molesters will continue their irrational acts. We have a large population that has been ill parented, poorly educated, is valueless, functions in a corrupt system, is inadequately governed, and lives with a clogged and insensitive criminal justice system, with no political and administrative will to reform. The divided civil society deepens the problems.

Do you think this kind of vigilante justice will reduce such attacks?

No. India is a country with a very weak criminal justice system. It has no fear of law left. Nobody gets punished even though the crimes are still fresh in people’s memories.

Bar Councils have not agitated for criminal justice reforms; I don’t recall when they did this last. There is no political will and no police or bureaucratic leadership worth naming, barring few exceptions.

When it becomes common knowledge that the police are lax in prosecuting sexual offenders or molesters, is using social media to shame molesters acceptable behavior from the public?

Yes, it is. Nothing else left in our system!!

What do you think of the downside of vigilante justice, that innocent people can be wrongly accused and punished? Do you think there are pitfalls to this approach?

There has been an increasing trend in India to be less anxious about the victim and more concerned about the possible error concerning the accused!

Everything done with the right intentions and good faith and courage, with the victim’s rights in focus, is an essential duty.

Unfortunately the groups for rights for the accused are more organised than any for victims’ rights.

Officers are sometimes abandoned by their own seniors, and politicians interfere for populism. The media, too, swings towards the accused.

Good policing has to take up the challenge. They ought to be proactive and not laid back.

Inertia is costing society dearly, and women most!

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