HT will use survey to petition President, Chief Justice and PM
As far as Delhi is concerned, the police aren’t really “for you, with you, always”, following the prosecution’s failure to get a conviction in the Jessica Lall murder case. Cynicism is embedded in the public psyche; an exclusive HT survey found that on a scale of 1 to 10, Delhi’s faith in law enforcement is just 2.7. Around 42 per cent wouldn’t bother to testify as a witness in murder trials. And it isn’t beyond imagination that Vikas Yadav, like Manu Sharma, will walk free in the Nitish Katara murder case.
And yet, people do want action. Overwhelmingly, they want the case reinvestigated, and they want the police who built the case to come under the CBI scanner. More than two-thirds even think it’s time for a rethink on the trial-by-jury system, which India abandoned in 1963.
The silver lining: Delhiites aren’t sure whether the accused would have been found guilty in other metros; opinion is split evenly on this count. That doesn’t, however, mitigate the undeniable outrage the city feels.