US Woman Condemns Rapist Getting Bail in India

A National Shame!

It was a Sunday late night and before I could hit the bed a WhatsApp alert drove me to check the message in my mobile. An old friend who lives in India’s financial capital shared a four minutes plus video of 26-mb file size which had no narratives. 

     Jennipha Lauren Nielsen 
     outside the Consulate General 
    of India in San Francisco, USA 

The content appeared pretty much serious, but the sender had no clue as she had received it from one of her many WhatsApp groups. Looking into the gravity of the content, I decided to take it forward in my small way though.

With a freeze frame did google reverse image search that led to pages and urls of an American woman who was sexually assaulted in New Delhi in 2013. The victim, Jennipha Lauren Nielsen, a human rights and gender equality activist has been condemning the bail granted to her attacker in the video. 

The convict, Raj Panwar, was in February 2019 sentenced to seven years in jail by a Delhi Court. The court had imposed 5 lakh INR and directed the amount to be paid to the complainant according to scroll.in. But strangely, the same court granted bail to the accused on 05 July 2019.

According to media reports, in 2013, Delhi resident Raj Panwar allegedly sexually assaulted the US national who was staying as tenant in his house in South Delhi with her husband. Raj Panwar is the nephew of former Delhi mayor Jayashree Panwar.

Consulate General of India, 

San Francisco, USA

Jennipha had caused a stir in Facebook on July 30 following a live video share from outside the Consulate General of India in San Francisco where she claimed of being denied of assistance. She said she was told to get some forms notarised. “Now [in] San Francisco, they tell me now that I need to go and get it notarised locally, then have to go to Sacramento [California] and get the notary verified,” she said.

In the video she went on to say: “India’s incredible corruption and lack of support for woman that are attacked is continuing. They refuse to help me yet they say that they want to stop violence against women in their own country… They want me to spend thousands of dollars to travel to the state of California on my own money because they have let a convicted criminal out on bail. We don’t give bail to convicted criminals.”

She appealed to her “desi friends” to help her and ensure that justice was served to her. “You do not let convicted criminals off when the victims were brave enough to go and testify . I need your help,” she added.

Jennipha who had travelled all alone from San Francisco to New Delhi to testify in the court, terribly regrets action of the court. She is determined to fight her case and escalate it to the Supreme Court of India for justice so that her perpetrator is not let loose on bail by a 'corrupt judge' but, put behind the bars. 

According to another report, the Indian consulate in San Francisco sympathised and offered all support to Jennipha. 

All said and done, such incidents are an eye sore which is a national shame of our country. It is high time for the authorities concerned to wake up and take corrective measures before New Delhi earns the dubious name of a rape capital. 

  Live video of Jennipha Lauren Nielsen that went viral 

The #MeToo India Movement

• Once Relationship Sours, Storyline Given a New Twist!

The #MeToo India movement is just getting crazy day by day as more victims are coming forward revealing their sordid ordeal about their predators. The latest one is from a US-based Indian scribe accusing journalist-turned-politician, M J Akbar of outraging her modesty more than two decades ago at a Jaipur hotel. 

After reading several news reports, the question that first comes in to one’s mind is why is the scribe reacting now after 23-long years?! Why did the scribe continue to work under this man for several months even after the incident?! Why didn’t the scribe report the incident and resign right away?! Did the scribe not know that the man had a wife, and a family would be broken?!

During my heydays working in private organisations, I have seen from close quarters that few colleagues with an altogether different body language, fell prey to top executives/CEOs, Editors, MDs and proprietors. What was surprising is that these colleagues with less or average calibre got fast promotions, high salaries, perks and plum postings in metro cities with frequent overseas travel. And

while the  higher-ups always had a ball-of-a time whenever they visited those metros. In the process, many equally or more competent men and women were left behind since they simply could not compete in a similar manner. 

Even though most knew what was actually happening, but these colleagues never complained of being sexually abused as they wanted to climb the social hierarchy by flaunting their positions and close proximity with powers of the organisation. 

While the going is good, there are no complaints, but when the usefulness is over and relationship sours, the storyline is given a twist by the usage of words like ‘exploitation’, ‘rape’, ‘victim’ and ‘predator’, etc. 

All these observations gets reinforced after receiving a shocking and disturbing video! Just three days ago a video of a super bollywood actress has gone viral that shows her happily in an immoral act. Incidently, the actress also happens to be a brand ambassador of tourism for Assam. The video was secretly captured by the man wearing a spy video recorder spectacle.  

It is sad due to the contriving relationship in workplace by two individuals, several competent colleagues missed out their dues. Therefore, there should not be any sympathy for such slimy scumbags to be booted out of their office, publicly named and shamed.

Though the Editors Guild of India appears to have taken a stern action against the various allegations leveled against Akbar, but it is a million dollar question if anything will fructify, since people familiar with the forum claims that it is highly politicised.

Finally, please do not read me wrong. By saying so I am not supporting any kind of abuse to women, rather treat them with utmost respect and equality.