MORAL POLICING’ IN INDIA: NO LEGAL JUSTIFICATIONS

Aneesh (22 years of age) was found hanging from a tree behind his house. The reason behind was
on Valentine’s Day, the victim and his female friend were assaulted and harassed near a beach in
Kollam by a group of five men, who were then arrested by the police.2
In yet another instance of moral policing in Karnataka, members of a ‘Hindutva’ outfit allegedly
assaulted a student for talking to a girl from another religion near M. Krishna School for Blind in
Hassan. They took the boy and the girl to a police station and demanded that a case be booked against
the boy for “attempting to convert the Hindu girl into Christianity.”3
A woman was assaulted in Kerala for riding scooter with a male colleague. A man was beaten to
death as he was seen coming out of a woman’s home whose husband lived in the Gulf.4
Every year on Valentine’s Day, a guy and a girl going together become usual suspects for the selfappointed
moral police.
Controversial “Anti-Romeo” squads to police and control young couples in public are spreading
across India after they were introduced by the firebrand Hindu leader of the country’s largest state,
Uttar Pradesh. The squads of plain-clothed and uniformed police officers have been accused of
“Taliban-like” moral policing by patrolling public spaces to prevent men from loitering near women.
The authorities claim they are only trying to protect women from sexual harassment.
The beauty of living in a democracy is the freedom which comes with it. People should understand
that everyone is different, especially when it comes to the moral aspect and nobody should be judged
for that.5