Precious Proof Of The Crimes Is Vanishing

As stated in earlier chapters, because of the highly professional nature of the massacre, it is very hard to prove the identity of the criminals, both who were on and off the scene. The only eye-witnesses, who are holding on to the memory of what and who they saw executing those crimes, are, the immediate families of the victims. Fourteen years later, perhaps, there is a question mark even on that. Not only because memory can fade with time and pain but also because some of the eyewitnesses may be too traumatised to come out with everything that happened to them. For instance, hundreds of young girls and women were gang-raped but none has even spoken about it. Rape, despite the rate at which it takes place in India and despite no rapist in the country having ever got more than two years behind bars, is, officially, still considered a crime. Besides, some eyewitnesses were very young at the time and their memory is lost in the cycle of time.

Life expectancy in India is not high and it goes without saying that the poor and the sick die quite young. In millions of cases they never live to be young. The survivors of the massacre, with wounds in their hearts that will stop bleeding only with their last breaths, cantons be expected to live much longer. In fact, hundreds of old men and women who saw their young sons being brutally killed are already dead. One hundred and seventeen young women who witnessed those spine-chilling killings (whom I knew personally due to my involvement in the relief work) committed suicide.

Thousand of others have nothing to live for, nobody to turn to. Words like "keep faith in God," draw a blank from them. There is really no language to describe their pain and poverty.

The point to underline here is that the surviving eyewitnesses must be heard before it is too late. Already, there is a dearth of proof that can withstand a legal investigation. What is there is too precious to be lost.