Burying an innocent child

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Newspapers these days are sprinkled with gut wrenching stories and sad images. I have a low threshold for pain. So, I usually avoid such heart breaking news and close my eyes at haunting pictures. But I could not ignore this poignant image of a one month old baby, who was murdered by a group of men in Kannoor. These sand rats, vermin, animals of the lowest denominator beat a poor vagabond family and killed their little one month old. They took the life of this innocent child, to avenge his twelve year old sister’s refusal to entertain them.

Sorry for posting this picture here. I am a father and I feel just as helpless as this young mother and father in the picture. All they could do was to lay him on their cleanest mat, wrap him one last time in his mother’s sari, protect his tiny soul from the scorching heat of a cruel world around him, with a crippled umbrella. They sat by the road, picking morsels of sand, and cried. They held his tiny motionless body and begged the bystanders for a place to bury their son.

We will all forget this by next week. The murderers will go un-punished. There will be no police, no leader, no human gods, no social activist, no religious groups, no IAS officers, and no NGOs to spare a thought for this tiny baby. I am sure even his parents will get over their grief. This child just was a happy little angel like my son or your child. I am infuriated, deeply saddened and feel helpless that an innocent infant was denied his life in such a brutal and barbarous way.