Jun 26
Corruption takes many strange forms, and can cause very strange situations. However, this incident takes the cake. The army has policies for disposal of its ammunition, and those do not allow letting its soldiers walk off with these shells and sell them for their personal benefit. So how do you account for the stupidity of this armyman and the scrap dealer to whom he sold it to?
Three people, including an Armyman, were killed and three others seriously injured when a shell exploded at a scrap dealer’s shop in Punjab’s Muktsar district on Thursday.
Muktsar police chief Gurpreet Singh Gill said the Armyman had taken the shell to the scrap dealer in Mehna village to sell. “When the shopkeeper hit the shell with a hammer, it exploded, killing three people on the spot,” he said.
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Oct 28
Women, Discrimination, Education, Punishment, Investigation, Marital, Dowry, Reform, Law, Punjab, Morality, Police
Why does dowry still exist ? There is an increasing trend towards demonizing dowry seekers in the media, in papers, and through demonstrations. One would have expected that by now, dowry seekers would have realized that demanding dowry is a double edged sword. No matter how attractive, handsome, rich, educated, high-earning your son is, if you push the bride’s family beyond a certain point, there exists the possibility of the police and media getting called, and then you are really in deep trouble. Because of the deep prevalence of dowry in society, the laws against dowry are pretty harsh, with the intention of seeking to level the balance of power (and many would say, have given the girl’s side much higher power through a slant in the law requiring the groom’s side to prove their innocence).
And yet people don’t learn. Here is an Indian family from the US that apparently demanded dowry, and when the bride’s family refused, there was an altercation, leading to the arrest of the groom. Now, it is very much possible that the groom’s side was being very demanding, and hence at some point, the police was called and once the magic words of dowry are uttered, things would spin out of control for the boy and his family. It is also possible that there was some misunderstanding, and based on that, dowry laws were invoked giving a major power point for the bride’s family.
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