Thankfully, Soumya doesn't have to go through the ignominy of an insensitive barter that's going on in her name.
The young lady - she was 23 and an employee of a private firm - had met her violent end during a train journey on 01 Feb 2011. She was pushed out of the train by a marauder and while lying seriously injured near the railway track at Vallathol Nagar, was raped by him. She did not survive the ordeal and her soul had taken flight from this unkind and insensitive world. To my mind it was good that she did not survive because the grievous injuries that she'd sustained, coupled with the mental trauma of rape, would have made her life a living hell!
The Railway Claims Tribunal has directed the Southern Railway to pay a solatium of Rs.4 lakhs to Soumya's mother based on a compensation claim filed on her daughter's tragic end. As far as governmental institutions go, one understands the fact that they cannot afford to get bogged down by sentiments and have to give directives satisfying the aggrieved parties, to the extent feasible, based on the merits of the case.
But going beyond practicalities, my mind is in a turmoil thanks to the following questions that reverberate within :-
(a) Would I, as a parent to have undergone such a loss, ever have approached a court asking for
compensation?
(b) Can anyone quantify the intrinsic worth of a human life in terms of money?
(c) And what about the Southern Railway's argument that a sum of Rs.3 lakhs, paid to the family on the
immediate aftermath of the incident, be deducted(thankfully, this was shot down by the tribunal) from
the solatium?
Tailpiece.
If we can't respect human life, at least, let's have the decency not to disrespect the dead!
The young lady - she was 23 and an employee of a private firm - had met her violent end during a train journey on 01 Feb 2011. She was pushed out of the train by a marauder and while lying seriously injured near the railway track at Vallathol Nagar, was raped by him. She did not survive the ordeal and her soul had taken flight from this unkind and insensitive world. To my mind it was good that she did not survive because the grievous injuries that she'd sustained, coupled with the mental trauma of rape, would have made her life a living hell!
The Railway Claims Tribunal has directed the Southern Railway to pay a solatium of Rs.4 lakhs to Soumya's mother based on a compensation claim filed on her daughter's tragic end. As far as governmental institutions go, one understands the fact that they cannot afford to get bogged down by sentiments and have to give directives satisfying the aggrieved parties, to the extent feasible, based on the merits of the case.
But going beyond practicalities, my mind is in a turmoil thanks to the following questions that reverberate within :-
(a) Would I, as a parent to have undergone such a loss, ever have approached a court asking for
compensation?
(b) Can anyone quantify the intrinsic worth of a human life in terms of money?
(c) And what about the Southern Railway's argument that a sum of Rs.3 lakhs, paid to the family on the
immediate aftermath of the incident, be deducted(thankfully, this was shot down by the tribunal) from
the solatium?
Tailpiece.
If we can't respect human life, at least, let's have the decency not to disrespect the dead!
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