The most shocking comment of the week comes from Delhi’s chief minister, Sheila Dikshit. A journalist named Soumya Viswanathan was shot dead in Delhi earlier in the week, driving home from work at around 3am, not an unusual time for a journalist to be getting home. She was 25. And Dikshit had the gall to say:
All by herself till 3 am at night in a city where people believe…you know…you should not be so adventurous.
In other words, she was asking for it. This is an argument coming from a woman.
My friend Shamya Dasgupta was Soumya’s colleague at Headlines Today, and has a moving post on her death here. He points to Facebook groups on her here and here. There’s also an online petition to the home minister here.
I hope Soumya gets justice soon. But equally, I hope that the pressure to show results does not lead to the cops framing an innocent person, as they tried to do in the Arushi case. I’m not optimistic—just as Soumya wasn’t adventurous.