Academicians worldwide voice against PM Modi's 'prolonged silence' on Kathua, Unnao rape cases

In a strong move for truth and justice to prevail, academicians and scholars from across the world have written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemning the Kathua and Unnao rape cases and held his government responsible for the shamed state of affairs. 

As many as 600 academicians raised concerns over Modi's "prolonged silence" on the issue and the "non-specific assurance of justice" for the victims of the shocking rape cases.

"We wish to express our deep anger and anguish over the events in Kathua and Unnao and the aftermath of these events; over the efforts of those administering the relevant states to protect the alleged perpetrators of these monstrous crimes; over the subsequent profoundly distasteful efforts of rationalisation and the deflection and diversion that have been so much in evidence in the reactions of your party's spokespersons in the media," the letter read.

"We have observed that there has been a prolonged silence on your part over the terrible state of affairs' in the country and an undeniable association of violence with the ruling dispensation,"' it added.

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The signatories to the letter include academicians and scholars from universities, including the New York University, the Brown University, the Harvard, the Columbia and prominent IITs.

The academicians also said the prime minister broke his prolonged (and by now familiar) silence" with "wholly inadequate, platitudinous, and non-specific assurances of justice for the victims." 

The Unnao and Kathua cases are not isolated incidents, but part of a sequence of "repeated targets" that the country has witnessed, they said.

"We send you this letter because it is our duty to do so; so that we are not guilty of silence, and so that callousness and cowardice might finally draw the line at the broken body of a little girl and the rape of a young woman," the letter concluded.

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The letter comes on the day the Union Cabinet approved an ordinance to provide stringent punishment, including the death penalty, for those convicted of rape of girls below 12 years.