http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/395354.stm
Well, seven long years ago, this reckless Delhi club kid got drunk and angry in a speakeasy, pulled a gun, and fired a shot into the ceiling. And into a barmaid. (See pic.) She died.
Luckily his dad was a government minister, so he got his posse of ten heavy-duty party-people pals to help clean it all up, and his dad bribed some witnesses. He got off.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6195671.stm
This year his dad finally was driven from power, so he had to go to a retrial. Of course he was swiftly found guilty, since everybody knew that he'd shot her. Mostly because the Indian tabloid press sneaked off and videotaped the suborned witnesses without their knowledge.
And they sheepishly admitted on video that, hey, yeah, we lied.
He loudly and publicly shot her in front of quite a large crowd, but you can't send a government minister's son to jail just because he emptied a gun into some totally random waitress-actress-model. I mean, really: that might be pretty bad and all that, but let's be practical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Lal
Then the digital-media angle kicked in.
"In the immense uproar that followed, hundreds of thousands of people e-mailed and sms-ed their outrage on petitions forwarded by media channels and newspapers to the President and others seeking remedies for the alleged miscarriage of justice. A poll conducted by the newspaper Hindustan Times showed that on a scale of 1 to 10, the public's faith in law enforcement in India was about 2.7.
"Public pressure built up with newspapers splashing headlines such as 'No one killed Jessica', and TV channels running SMS polls. Models, fashion designers, friends, relatives and others have held candle-light vigils at India Gate in New Delhi to protest the injustice of it all.
"Surender Sharma, the police inspector responsible for the investigation, was transferred from the plum Hauz Khas position to a bureaucratic post. (((In point of fact, Surender Sharma, the cop in charge, was transferred far, far out of India and all the way into Kosovo in the Balkans, where reckless gun-toting mayhem of this sort is the rule rather than the exception.))) The police have also launched an inquiry against the possibly deliberate ineptness of their own earlier investigation.
"Bowing to public opinion, the Delhi Police appealed against the acquittal at Delhi's High Court. "
So, the Indian public's slow seven-year burn outlasted his
Dad's ability to pull the strings up-top, so off the killer goes to life in prison. The Indian press and public are offering themselves a round of congratulations now.
What next?
I'm figuring this gun-toting aristocrat has got two top things on his mind right now (besides bribing his prison guards for thicker blankets and better food.)
(A), He's really glad he got those seven free years of extra party time. (B), Now that he's been made a public example of, he'll lie low and angle for a very quiet pardon. Seven years from today would be
2014. And the indignant and vengeful Indian public will have a lot of other burning issues on their minds by then. Hey, it could happen.
