Man, if you are stressed out, you can easily go and rape and practically get away with it these days. No, not by hoodwinking the law, or by finding ways to cirumvent the system. In fact, the law will be on your side and be pretty sympathetic too. A US soldier who raped a Nigerian woman in Italy has been given a lighter sentence because the court deemed his tour of duty in Iraq had made him less sensitive to the suffering of others. James Michael Brown beat and handcuffed the woman, a Nigerian resident in the town of Vicenza. He raped her vaginally and anally and left her to wander the streets naked in search of help. [Link]

The Best Bakery and Jessica Lall court rulings are now being seen in conjunction. It is natural that they would be. Not only did one judgment follow close on the heels of the other, they also provided an interesting study of contrasts. That of the consectaneous deduction that witnesses will gush forth with the truth in a conducive environment. [Henceforth, BB – Best bakery, and JL – Jessica Lall, for the sake of convenience] The court ruling in the JL case left everyone despondent. Disenchanted with the system. The ruling in the BB case seemed to underpin the argument about the necessity of witness protection programmes, about botched-up police investigations, about perjury penalisation for hostile winesses, and others. The problem, we are being told over and over again, is with the system. About the law being an ass.

My colleagues were exhilarated. They were agitated too. So the woman who, they claimed, had killed hundreds and got away with it, had finally been gunned down. Quite rightly so, they belligerently maintained. Those who live by the sword must die by the sword, was the apology. But they were disturbed as well. What if the man, who had liquidated her and been subsequently nabbed, were to be hanged for the justice he had meted out? It would become a travesty of justice. The boss, barely able to gulp down his lunch in this choked state of mind, felt rape is fine, but rape cannot be an excuse for killing your rapists. Yes, nodded the others sotto voce, almost as if rape is the greatest thing than can happen to a woman. The boss, need one reveal, was a man? The physical humiliation and emotional trauma that Phoolan had to undergo during that infamous, seemingly-unending gangrape was perceived as "okay". All in the game, you see.