I am an adult. My girl friend is an adult. We want to spend some cosy time together, or even have sex. Who is the police to stop me? In an ideal case, no one, but as it turns out, here in India they can.
This Thursday morning, Mumbai police stormed into various hotels in Aksa and Madh Island and caught hold of 40 couples and took them to the police station. Their only fault was that they were staying in a hotel with their loved one.
Since when staying in a hotel became a crime?
The couples were charged on the grounds of ‘indecent behaviour in public’. If a hotel room is ‘being in public’, then the Mumbai police can only explain best what is the meaning of private?
The laws on indecency in public places are ambiguous in our constitution. And it would have been worth a thought if those couples were ‘raided’ in a park or a shopping mall, engaging in ‘indecent activities’, but not a hotel room.
The couples were made to call their parents, insulted in front of them, and then made to a pay a fine of Rs. 1200 before being eventually allowed to leave after almost 5 hours of mental torture.
This act by the police questions the privilege given by our constitution of being treated as an adult after the age of 18. The government does not hold the right to stop an individual from having consensual sex in a hotel room. I don’t have to be married to have sex, it’s not a crime, please get this straight. A couple of years back it was discussed whether the age of consensual sex should be reduced from 18 to 16, and now this. How big a hypocrite we are?
A 21 year girl, who was also a victim of this incident, was quoted by Mid Day, “Do we have freedom as citizens of India? How can you fine and demean us and intrude into our privacy. If you want to take legal action, fine the hotels or lodges if any of them allow immoral activities like prostitution to go on in their premises. Making love to the person of my choice in a private room doesn’t amount to indecent behaviour in public. You can’t just harass us because a DCP orders a raid.”
I cannot agree more. Our constitution empowers us with the right to privacy, and it cannot be intervened with unless and until we don’t infringe on other’s rights. Police cannot bend the laws for their unjust motives. Moral policing has been taken to a new level by this so called raid.
In 2008 also, a couple was harassed by the Delhi police for kissing under the metro station. It was later found that they were married, and the police ended up apologising to them for their inappropriate behaviour.
The government already tells us what to eat, and what not to (beef), what to watch and what not to (porn). Now do we also have to take their permission before having sex in a hotel?
It’s high time the police stops poking in every individual’s business, and start minding their own. There are better and more important things to do for the Mumbai police than knocking on hotel rooms and troubling young couples without any valid reason.
