Disturbingly, different accounts of what happened at the city hospital on the fateful night of 9 August have been doing the rounds. Authorities, including the hospital administration and police have issued statements which have clearly not satisfied the horrified public which includes doctors and others. The only thing that is certain is a 31-year-old trainee doctor lay dead, allegedly raped and murdered, in the seminar room of the same hospital where she worked (read overworked) in a state of extreme mutilation.

The number of Twitter, Facebook or Whatsapp posts doing the rounds is disturbing. Each is obviously pushed by the poster’s own preconceived or preferred opinion. And each is as diametrically opposite to the other as possibly can be. One post shared by a friend details the grotesque nature of the assault and another one shared by another friend is a set of completely contradictory arguments to the earlier set of enumerated ghastliness.

The only other truth (other than the fact that the trainee doctor’s life was brutally terminated and her family is devastated) is that we don’t have enough faith in our system to stop ourselves from filling up social media space with conjectures. We don’t have enough trust in our administrators to reveal the truth, far less try to do something to eradicate horrors like trafficking or rape.

The outrage after the rape and murder of the Delhi girl (euphemistically named “Nirbhaya” or now “Abhaya”) forced legislators to look at the laws. And there was a glimmer of hope that deterrents would be ushered in through stringent framing of laws. But the legislators debated and argued and debated and argued as though it was an intellectual issue rather than one of raw realities lurking in the lives of people, helpless because of a lackadaisical administration which is governed only by lust for power.  Individuals are inured because they are aware that people who people governments don’t really care. Individuals are inured because perhaps they too know that if they were the people peopling the governments they too wouldn’t really care.

Yet crushing disappointments ought not to deter us from continuing to hope. And I think that the outrage in Kolkata which has spilled over across the country and around the world is stirring up glimmers of hope. On the midnight before Independence Day, I joined one of the gatherings at Rashbehari Avenue and heard the united voices, which were charged with anger rather than anguish, with rage rather than resignation and which seemed to say, “Enough is enough.” And clearly, “Reclaim the night” was not just a movement of women but of men and other genders who had gathered together to say “Enough is enough.”

Power of the people would necessarily rankle and attempts would be on to deter. And wondered if the vandalism that took place during the protests was not part of that deterrent. But people do not get silenced when their peace is disturbed.

Rest in peace, Doctor. We are duly disturbed.