The chilling pattern

Brazen daylight murders by suitors who stalk girls and use weapons when their advances get rejected are a blot on Haryana. The latest victim of such gruesome crime is Nikita Tomar, a college student of Ballabgarh. Her shooting in front of her college has been caught on camera, leading to the arrest of the two accused. Exactly a year back, it was Sarita, a national-level taekwondo player, whose killers had the gall to shoot her dead at her home in a Gurugram village. They were finally nabbed earlier this month, 11 months after evading the police. A couple of years earlier, Pooja Rani fell prey to the knife stabs inflicted on her in a Hisar eatery.

The abhorrent gender crime puts a chilling question mark on the state’s tall claims to have made considerable progress in saving the beti. It certainly calls for renewed efforts to combat the social evil. Making matters worse are the lapses and loopholes in the law enforcement and judicial systems that allow the perpetrators to escape the net lightly. Exemplary and swift punishment to all assassins, no matter how mighty or well-connected they may be, will certainly drill a sense of fear and deter potential killers. It will save many girls from fatal attacks by men ‘enraged’ by a no. Woo a girl you love with love, not threats. And, respect her decision, either way. Boys need to be groomed by both families and schools to adopt this mantra from childhood.

The huge strides made by girls in education and sports in Haryana get a beating by the repeated blood-curdling pattern of killing of women by the men spurned. It is indicative of the disturbing fact that patriarchal and misogynistic mores remain deeply entrenched in our society. Till they are uprooted, the brave girls resisting pressure to give in to bullies and abusive boys will end up as mere statistics in the rising crime graph.