I’ve been seeing videos of policemen thrashing men and women venturing out of their homes during curfew, beating them mercilessly with their lathis, and under the forward of the video was a comment from the sender, “I support the police for this action!”

I wanted to send a rejoinder but decided I wouldn’t get into an argument with fear of the virus taking logic out of our minds.

And then I got this piece of news on TV, that 15,000 litres of milk and 10,000 kg of vegetables were dumped as police beat up e commerce vehicle drivers and cleaners who are delivering essential items like groceries, medicines, and food to cities. These men carrying supplies are facing attack from law enforcement officials!

Must have been a severe thrashing for commodities of this proportion to be dumped, right?

But, that is what happens when we give license to brutality. The lathi cannot differentiate between what is right and what isn’t.

The courts do, and whatever the situation, we have to allow the law to be enforced by the legal system. In Mumbai, breakers of the curfew and even some students playing cricket in a housing colony were arrested and taken to the police station.

They were not beaten up like criminals.

I remember the long trial of the terrorist Kasab. Like everyone else, I was sick and tired of the long wait to see the man hang. It was a lawyer who explained to me, that even the worst offender of the law, had to get a fair trial.

Like it or not, coronavirus or not, we are a democracy and have to follow the system, otherwise we will pay for it as the khaki clad guardians of the law get trigger happy and lathi charged, and take law into their own hands!

And it won’t end there.

It might end in your own backyard when you hear your son or husband, going out to get supplies or medicines was thrashed by the cops.

Yes, there is fear of the virus, and drastic steps have been taken on an unprecedented scale, but nowhere should we lose the rights and freedom which we have fought to get!

And if you don’t agree with me wait for the lathi to strike you from behind as you sit pillion on the back of your friend’s motorbike, when he inadvertently rode past a red light, and as you fall off writhing in pain you’ll know when it all started.

It started when you remained silent..! 

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