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Video Editor: Mohd Ibrahim & Purnendu Pritam
Camera: Shivkumar Maurya
Hothon pe na dil mein haan hoinga...
Tu haan kar ya na kar, tu hai meri Kiran...
Saat samundar paar main tere, peeche peeche aagayi...
Tera pichha na main chhodunga soniye...
Hum tujhko uthakar le jayengay...
The list of Bollywood songs that touch upon stalking could go on and on. But we are all Bollywood fans and dance to these numbers at parties and wedding functions.
Do we get influenced by these songs and movies? In 2015, an Indian man was accused of stalking two women and his lawyer successfully argued that Bollywood movies show that patiently pursuing a woman yields positive results, Telegraph reported.
And the court passed a judgment in his favour saying that his cultural background had influenced his behaviour!
So, does Bollywood really give us the inspiration to pursue the ‘love of our life’ endlessly and do people think it’s romantic and all part of the ‘game’ of love? We went around Delhi streets to get a sense of what people think about stalking.
In the words of our interviewees:
The Quint is running a campaign called Talking Stalking which asks for stalking to be a non-bailable offence. When the Justice Verma committee proposed a section for stalking in 2013, after the Nirbhaya gangrape case in 2012, they wanted stalking to be added as a non-bailable offence.
The fact that stalking is still a bailable offence in our country allows stalkers to get bail without serious scrutiny. This often puts the survivors at risk of facing acid attacks, rape, and even murder.
Stalking as a separate offence did not exist in the IPC till 2013. This necessarily affects any analysis of the statistics relating to stalking, as the National Crime Records Bureau (“NCRB”) only has statistical data for the years 2014-2016. Despite this, the data available paints an interesting picture of the nature of the crime and the way it is being dealt with in the country.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)
Published: 10 Apr 2018,03:11 PM IST