Tripura Horror: Woman Beaten, Half-Shaved Over Unpaid Loan
A rather – rather ugly event that took place in Tripura has become shocking for the country. A woman was savage assaulted, and a group of people nearly bald her head for not repaying a loan she took from them. The barbaric act has elicited a lot of concern among the public with regard to the up surge of mob justice and violence in the country.
The Incident: A Case of Public Humiliation
The violence took place in a village in the West Tripura district in which the woman categorized in her 30s lost a lot of money through moneylenders in the area but was unable to repay the money. Several sources claim that the coalition of creditors became furious over her failure to pay the money and was going to use force.
From the two witnesses, the group EVEN AS HE VIDEK kamauLocalStorage TAKEN FROM HTTP://FREEDOMFLASH ORG/EU/2014/06/29/ VIDEOKAMAUINDAHETWOMEN AS SHE WASBEINGDRAGGEDOUTOFHERHOMEANDPHYSICALLYASSAULTED AS A MEANSOFHUMILIATIONTOWASHAVENO.< Reports have emerged on the incidents stating that the gruesome experience was recorded on different cameras by different people and circulated in different social platforms.
What Led to This Brutality?
The woman, now an alleged member of the group, had been said to have taken a small amount of money from the group to cater for her needs in the village. However, the lack of funds made her to fail in repaying the amount within the agreed time for repaying the balance.
As much as the people involved in the lending sector have taken it upon themselves to recover their cash, they even used force instead of going to court or mediating. This case perfectly illustrates that rural people have no efficient ways to solve financial disputes, and this is why many of them turn to predatory lending.
Law Enforcement Response
After posting the videos, police immediately began an investigation of the case. Some people suspected to have taken part in the attack have been named and police is trying to apprehend them.
A senior police officer said: “Instances like these, we cannot allow people to take laws in to their own hands”. We are ready to work until everybody who deserves punishment according to the law is punished.” The victim is currently admitted in hospital and have been referred to police protection.
A Broader Problem: Mob Justice and Financial Exploitation
This is not the first time such an incident occurs. Loan sharks, who are common in most rural areas of India, use physical force practically every time they are paid a visit by their clients who are in default. Defaulters are harassed, threatened, and at times publicly humiliated, or even physically attacked because they cannot repay loans out of high interest charges or due to financial difficulties.
There are many people with low Financial quite and many do not know how to handle in a better way and they cannot engage with formal banking sectors that can expose them to such exploitative acts. Furthermore, the political vigilantism or what has become the more heinous act of mob justice, shows the total neglect of local governance and police in the containment of such acts of barbarism.
Calls for Reform
In the wake of this incident, activists and social organizations have called for immediate action to:
Strengthen Financial Education: Raising awareness on the general farming population on safe borrowing and more importantly borrowing within the legal formalized banking system will help to rid then of dependence from the informal lenders.
Enhance Law Enforcement: Possibilities for faster reactions and stronger legal consequences are the ways in which these scenes can be prevented.
Establish Mediation Mechanisms: Local governments have to create independent systems of the financial dispute resolution to avoid the use of force.
Support for Victims: For such cases, it means that counseling services, legal assistance and financial compensation must be delivered to a victim to support him or her during the process of recovery and adaptation to new conditions.