'Enough is Enough': President Droupadi Murmu says Kolkata rape-murder has left the nation shocked

President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday issued a statement on crime against women in the country and said the "gruesome incident of rape and murder of a doctor in Kolkata has left the nation shocked." In a three-page statement, the President said she was dismayed and horrified when she came to hear of the incident at Kolkata's RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

"What is more depressing is the fact that it was not the only incident of its kind; it is part of a series of crimes against women. Even as students, doctors and citizens were protesting in Kolkata, criminals remained on the prowl elsewhere," she said while refering to the incident at the RG Kar Medical College and another incident in Maharashtra's Badlapur. "The victims include even kindergarten girls. No civilised society can allow daughters and sisters to be subjected to such atrocities. The nation is bound to be outraged, and so am I."

The President said she feel deeply anguished when she hears about brutality against women in any part of the country. She also shared that recently, she was in a unique predicament when some schoolchildren who had come to celebrate Rakhi at the Rashtrapati Bhavan asked her innocently if they could be assured that there would be no recurrence of the Nirbhaya-type incident in future.

"I told them that though the State is committed to protect every citizen, training in self-defence and martial arts is essential for all, particularly girls, to make them stronger. But that’s not a guarantee for their security as women’s vulnerability is influenced by many factors. Obviously, the full answer to that question can come only from our society. For that to happen, what is needed first of all is honest, unbiased self-introspection," she added.

Recalling the Nirbhaya incident that had rocked the country twelve years ago, Murmu said after that tragic incident in December 2012, the country was  determined not to let another Nirbhaya meet the same fate. "We made plans and devised strategies. These initiatives did make a difference to an extent. Yet, our task remains unfinished as long as any woman feels unsafe in the environment where she lives or works."

In the twelve years since that tragedy in the national capital, there have been countless tragedies of similar nature, though only a few drew nationwide attention, the President said, adding that even these were soon forgotten. "Did we learn our lessons? As social protests petered out, these incidents got buried into a deep and inaccessible recess of social memory, to be recalled only when another heinous crime takes place."

"This collective amnesia, I am afraid, is as much obnoxious as that mindset I spoke of," she said. "History often hurts. Societies scared to face history resort to collective amnesia to bury their heads in the sand like the proverbial ostrich. Now the time has come not only to face history squarely but also to search within our souls and probe the pathology of crime against women."

The President said she was of the firm belief that "we should not let amnesia prevail over the memory of such criminality". "Let us deal with this perversion in a comprehensive manner so as to curb it right at the beginning. We can do this only if we honour the memory of the victims by cultivating a social culture of remembering them to remind us of our failures in the past and prepare us to be more vigilant in future."