Peerzada Masarat Shah
What happened on the streets of Bakhshinagar, Jammu, is not just a news story — it’s a national heartbreak. A young man, accused of theft but not yet proven guilty, was not taken to a courtroom — he was dragged into a public court of humiliation. Tied up, half-naked, and hung with a garland of old shoes, he was made to sit atop a police vehicle like a war trophy.
This wasn’t law in action. This was vengeance. This was brutality dressed in uniform. This was not justice — this was public sarmandgi.
The man sat with his eyes lowered, clutching the shoes that had been forced around his neck. He looked defeated, not just by what he had allegedly done — but by what had been done to him. Around him, cameras clicked, microphones poked, and people watched. Some laughed, some filmed, but few questioned.
Is this what our democracy has come to? A spectacle of pain?
In a country where the Constitution guarantees the right to life with dignity under Article 21, this image was a slap across the face of every citizen who still believes in law, order, and fairness. That Article was not just violated — it was shredded.
We must ask: Who gave the SHO of Bakhshinagar the right to become judge, jury, and public punisher? His job was to arrest, not to humiliate. His duty was to uphold the law, not twist it into a weapon of public disgrace.
The garland of shoes wasn’t just humiliating — it was inhuman. We do not decorate even the guilty like that, let alone someone not yet proven to be. If we, as a society, tolerate such public lynching of dignity, we risk losing our humanity piece by piece.
This isn’t just about one police officer’s misconduct — it’s about a system that allows such actions to happen, and sometimes even silently applauds them. When humiliation becomes a tool of policing, justice dies a quiet, painful death.
And where was the media? Right there — recording, zooming in, asking the accused where he came from as if his place of origin determined his worth. Instead of questioning the barbarity, the media became part of the performance. They didn’t report the crime; they helped stage it.
This is not just a breakdown of the system — this is a betrayal of the very soul of India.
Even a child studying civics knows that guilt must be proven in a court of law, not presumed on the bonnet of a police jeep. But in Bakhshinagar, that bonnet became the courtroom, the garland became the sentence, and the uniform became a symbol of fear, not faith.
What does this tell our youth? That once you are accused, your dignity is disposable? That law and procedure are optional? That humiliation is the new justice?
This incident must not be forgotten, and it must not be forgiven without accountability. The SHO must be suspended and investigated, not protected behind slow inquiries and silent corridors. The Director General of Police and the Lieutenant Governor must act, and they must act now — not to save face, but to save faith in the rule of law.
We are not asking for sympathy for a thief. We are demanding dignity for a human — a right that even prisoners of war are given under international law.
Because when a citizen is humiliated like this, it is not just one man who is shamed — it is the nation itself.
Let this garland of shoes not hang on a broken man’s neck, but on the gates of every institution that watched in silence. Let it be a symbol — not of punishment, but of our collective failure.
And let this be a reminder:
If justice must walk in India, let it walk tall.
Not barefoot. Not shamed. Not garlanded in disgrace.
But protected — always — by dignity, by decency, and by law.
