Day: May 15, 2012

By: Bishwajit Okram, LL.B, LL.M, ACCA

“Omg! What in the world? How can anyone be this brutal? Its someones life were talking about here!! All this brutality for changing the channel? Justice should be given!! Please please!! I beg not only the Northeasterner students or people working in Bangalore but to all the right thinking citizens of India should take a stand and fight for Justice!! R.I.P Richard!”

The Garden City, Bangaluru, one assumes, is a very safe city unlike its counterparts in some parts of India. And yet odour of ‘racism’, a stink given out by the facbookers as an intention suspected behind the murder of Late Richard, emanates from this garden city.
Reporting the dead as related to drugs and the accident the victim had two days ago, was the most idiotic thing to do by the local media.
Putting salt to the wound was the indifferent attitude of the dean of the Institute- the Acharya NRV School of Architecture- Bangalore. He was quoted mentioning some habits and temperaments of the late Richard, as though reprimanding him posthumously not being enough with the fact that the poor boy was no more alive, then; this was totally against the sanctity of respecting a departed soul!
The saddest of all was the extreme casual approach of the law enforcing agency, the Bangalore rural police which has the jurisdiction of this case. ‘Mysterious circumstances of the death’ as often cited by the police sounded like the mysteries often endured in the crime fiction book- Sherlock Homes of Arthur Conan Doyle.
The two rogue hostel mates punched him dead; simple! How mysterious could it be?
It took a Mark Zuckerberg’s company-the facebook, to unravel the ‘mystery’ for the code to be unlocked, for the world to see the gruesome image, and cry in horror with disbelief; the writing in the wall of the facebook became clearer – in all probability (Late) Richard was done to death with a strong vengeance; this is the verdict at the minimum by the facebookers.
The first facebook wall arrived on the 24th of April. The soulless face in the facebook came seeking justice for his death all around the world.
His face smeared with blood all around, the battered mouth that oozed out blood shocking the pillow, the sore and swollen face that of like a beast bitten by another beast, the brutally smashed late Richard Loitam lay asleep in his dead as seen in the facebook wall that arrived on the 24th of April.
One would often wonder why such a thing had to happen within a well secured four wall of a hostel governed by able administrators inter alia the well educated and qualified dean of the institute.
Questions are still not answered: why none of the hostel mates came forward to intervene the assault? Why nobody reported the deadly incident to any authority?
As mentioned in some report, the warden did see the assault, then, why was not he bothered to examine the injuries sustained by late Richard if it was grievous or not?;
Why the Bangalore police was playing pooh-pooh with the case – sometimes saying the death was due to accident, under mysterious circumstances; it was a case of homicide but not murder; but now it is a case of murder but the suspects can’t be arrested; they need to wait for x,y,z reports.
The police tried its best to prove that the case is that of a accident; a television footage showed the police inspector showing to the media personnel the helmet worn by the victim two days before his death-trying to make his point that the severity of the damage caused to the helmet could mean Richard’s death was due to the accident.
The dean also played its part well to shrug off the matter lightly. It took him nearly a fortnight to expel the suspects from college. Under normal circumstances, action should have been initiated the following day – pending police investigation; not for the killing but for breaking the hostel norms and rules, if assaulting and killing is not part of the hostel norms. But he didn’t!

Facebookers , more than 2,00,000 of them are still profusely condemning the killing and, they are appalled by the fact that no arrest has been made so far.
It is reported as the author writes this feature, the suspects are under hostel arrest; it is a kind of ‘ house arrest’ we often come across in high profile politically peculiar cases.
A beautiful quote says, “Racism isn’t born, folks, it’s taught……”- Dennis Leary.
India’s constitution is one of the finest constitutions in the world, particularly the article 19 to 21 are enough for every citizen to feel secured and enjoy the best of the freedoms one can think of.
But, quite often questions arise again and again; there seems to be having a stark difference between what is on the ground and what is guaranteed in the constitution-a total disconnect.
May not be taught in a black and white- but the inaction of the authorities in such cases may imply for it, what the quote above mentioned tries to say.
Many pioneer facebookers of that wall wailed, yelled and, the same were echoed by other fellows on the same questions-racism and justice.

Many cast racism and regionalism when they wrote. One can only hope that was not the case.

Manish Rawat could have yelled on the top his voice when he wrote-” We @%*** INDIAN BREED STILL DONT KNOE NORTH EAST IS INDIA TOO………..”

Marak Jeffrey further shared a past experience, -“…that happened some years ago in Chikmanglur to a fellow NE brother. That incident though was quite conveniently covered up. I hope Richard gets justice.”
Lobsang Tshering Bhutia wrote -“This is racism to the limits…. Heights… People should look beyond barriers of caste nd creed… The people guilty of this dreadful incident should definitely be hanged irrespective of their social and economic status…. Justice should prevail!!! “

Imti Piratelord Ao : “All students from NE and other parts of India studying in Bangalore stand up n fight for him. put damn pressure on the police until they make this case a strong one so that it doesn’t happen 2 u too in the future… “

Issac Buns : “regionalism pure brutal regionalism. . . It is just not happening . . the treatment .tat a student of NE gets is not at all tolerable . We just need answers n justice . It is not justifiable tat he was a drug user witout any sort of evidence . May his soul rest in peace . N justice is just his soul needs . .”

Lhüvevolü Rhakho : “Omg! What in the world? How can anyone be this brutal? Its someones life were talking about here!! All this brutality for changing the channel? Justice should be given!! Please please!! I beg not only the Northeasterner students or people working in Bangalore but to all the right thinking citizens of India should take a stand and fight for Justice!! R.I.P Richard!”

Tshering Choden Bhutia : “northeast ppl r always discriminated.. Only we ppl can understand..”
Mrigank Bhattacharya “R.I.P. Richard…..those monsters who hv done dis wid u, willl burn in hell…..if dere iz GOD….”

Neil Singh: “ ths is the second time in a week tht a northeast student has been killed……”

Deepankar Roy: “If such Incident of a Student from Mainland India Dying in North East would have come Up, The Publicity and the Swift Justice that, All the Mainland States would have demanded invariably can make the Life of North Easterner Hell in MAINLAND INDIA!!! But Unfortunately, We are looked upon as UNTOUCHABLES by our Own Brother and Sisters from MAINLAND INDIA, meant only for Exploitation be it Human Resources or Natural Resources !!!
Heights of INSANITY! WAKE UP u all People from MAINLAND INDIA before its too LATE!!!!!!!!!”

Gaurav Dikshit: “RIP..really sad..Worst form of racism exists in India”

Pry Singha: “har gali mein to kutta bhi sher hotey hai……saley north indian people 1nce u cme 2 north-east dn wl so u…..”

This is, however , not to say that there are no people looking at this issue, rationally from different perspective. Many also explain logically their own perspectives.
Vishnu Vishwanathan: “R.I.P Brother! No matter north east north west , south or north India ! India govtt. has no law strong laws for safety of students …Neither do they concern about student problems ….Thats why there is ragging everywhere …Feels sad but its the truth as i myself was once a raging victim however i escaped death n a story dat wud have circled up d whole f networking sites if i wud have been dead den…Common students lets get n unite togather as community not race based groups to fight Raging in campus ………………!!!!!!”

ALan Sibia : “Its heartbreaking! There can b no justification for taking someone else life. Whethr he ws a drug abuser or not, had a tiffd wt hs mates or not, no person or group hav a rit to end the life of Loitam or any human. It forces me to percept: a) was ther any racial motive behind the killing? b) was he used by the seniors as an object to show off their courage n skills whch comes out only when the number of ther associates are high? c) was ther any deliberate plan of harming him even to the extend of killing him- (complimenting to the level of torment tht one can presumed frm the pic). These are questions whch time wl b answer IF the murderers are to be properly trialed before a court of law. RIP Richard n i doubted if peace n harmony are to exist in the minds n lives of the killers for quite a long time. “

Vishal Chaudhary: “guys it not about regionalism its about the miss done done by some bloodies who should be punished bitterly”

Thankfully, majority of the facebookers maintain the composure except to rent their frustration, which were quite human.
Samsad Ahmed: “saitan banna asan hai par kya insan bane rahna itna muskil hai”

Raj Tewary : “…….acharya institute it shud be burnt down. alongwith those murderers”

Dicky K Gangte Meizap : “This is 3rd degree torture and murder”

Gopal Bhandari : “I think the management should be honestly dealing by compensating and justifying his family as well as all the culprits should be given hardest punishment. Or else this will lead to a big social unrest .”

Hrishi Singh: “the person who hve done this, ussko ko saale ko ssube saamne aise he marne ka order diya jaye,,,,,,,this iss the only way to stop such kind of things”

Milind Wankhede : “So sad yaar. ……. Oh god Where r u”

Monica Witschi Tenzin Chokzin : “Horrifying…..”

Lizza F Hinzz :” is da word humanity not in them…may his soul rest in peace…”

The bottom line is, punish the guilty and deliver the justice to the victim without further delay. For this to happen, it would need an extra ordinary courage for a robust justice system to work. Effectively then, if at all there existed racism, that will automatically go of its own.

Still, the rationality is

“You don’t fight racism with racism, the best way to fight racism is with solidarity.”-unknown

This article is sent to KanglaOnline by Bishwajit Okram

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/05/the-fight-is-for-%E2%80%98justice%E2%80%99-for-richard-loitam-%E2%80%93-not-for-%E2%80%98racism%E2%80%99-facebookers-still-argue/