When an activist was terrorised into silence in Delhi...

December 31, 2012 12:31

Activist Debayani Bose was in Delhi late February last year, and she boarded a bus at Munirka (the same bus-stop from where the gangrape victim took a Blueline bus on the night of December 16), and her horrific experience snuffed out the activist in her, she writes in The Telegraph, Calcutta.

'I boarded a public bus around 9pm from Munirka bus stand, the same bus stand from where the 23-year-old gang-rape victim had started her fateful journey. I was returning from a dinner party,' she writes.

'Suddenly, a group of sturdy-looking drunken men boarded the bus, carrying liquor bottles in hand. Neither the conductor nor the driver stopped them. They were shouting at the top of their voices, being abusive. They said they were on a "fun-ride'.

'They did not even bother to get their bus tickets and the conductor didn't ask them to. I don't know about the others, but the reason I kept mum became clear to me after a few moments' introspection -- I was afraid, very afraid, to raise my voice against the bunch of hooligans who made me feel threatened and insecure, and terrorised me by their very presence in the bus.

'The activist in me that has always taken a stand against wrongdoing had suddenly died a horrible death.'

Read her full account here. While on the subject, don't miss out on these articles from rediff.com too:

For the Lionheart who wanted to live

What kind of a nation fails to protect its women?

View: Is rape a new development indicator?

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