commentary by Patrick H. Moore
One of the burning questions in the world of crime is whether vigilante justice is ever justified. Many of us, deep within our being, probably sympathize with people who “justly” take the law into their own hands to obtain rough justice in an even rougher world. On the other hand, even as we empathize with the wronged individual, and perhaps even — to some degree — cheer them on as they reap their revenge, we are also painfully aware that the meting out of justice should be left to the courts and that, in fact, a defendant’s right to due process is absolutely essential if we are to live in a civilized society.
In the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s great yet highly disturbing film, The Virgin Spring, a proud and noble father, upon encountering the herdsmen who have raped and murdered his beautiful daughter, literally murders them with his bare hands.
After it’s all over, the father repents and asks God’s forgiveness for his vengeful actions. He also states that he will build a church on the site of his daughter’s murder. But despite his repentance and desire for atonement, he also cannot help asking why God would allow such a horrendous thing to be visited upon his family.
Now, we have a somewhat similar situation arising in Northern India, with the important differences that the victim child was raped but not killed, and the father, who sought and obtained problematical “justice” by killing the rapist, now faces serious criminal charges. Thus, unlike in the Bergman film, where the proud father has only God to answer to, in our modern scenario, the father must now face the wrath of the state.
Here is what happened, according to Ananya Bhardwaj, writing in the Journalism of Courage section of the Indian Express:
A day after a father tortured his daughter’s alleged rapist to death, he told police that he did not mean to kill but could not bear that his pregnant 14-year-old would find no justice.
Because the rapist, who appears to have been the Indian equivalent of a pharmaceutical agent, threatened the victim child with dire circumstances if she told anyone about the sexual assault, the child kept the awful news to herself and the family only found out after taking the child to the doctor.
The father told police that he found out about his daughter’s alleged rape only a week ago, after doctors at a local hospital informed him about her being pregnant. “She started complaining of morning sickness and dizziness. We took her to a doctor and we were told that she is pregnant. We were shocked,” the mother of the girl said.
Once her pregnancy was revealed, the child finally mustered up the courage to tell her parents that the agent, who lived in an apartment in the same building, and often took care of the girl and her siblings, had taken her to his room and raped her while the family was away.
Thus, it’s not unreasonable to surmise that the rapist may have been planning to make his move for some time, and at the very least, had been lusting after the child in the dark corners of his mind. (All men know that it’s not unnatural for the male of the species to occasionally think a wayward thought about or cast a wayward glance at an under-aged teenage girl, but all men also know that should this occur, propriety demands that we put the 
thought out of our minds and go on to something more appropriate like cricket or losing money in the stock market. Under no circumstances are we allowed to act upon our wayward desire.)
The poor mother poignantly describes how her daughter changed after the rape and the ensuing pregnancy:
“She stopped smiling. She stopped eating properly or going out with her friends.”
After the father learned what had happened, he reports that his initial response — after deciding not to go to the police for fear popular opinion would blame the whole thing on his daughter – was to invite the alleged rapist to dinner at his apartment to ask him why he had raped his daughter. But, the father reports, when questioned, “instead of feeling sorry, the victim started to use offensive language.”
Big mistake. At that point, the father reports he lost it, and after torturing the agent by burning his genitals with hot iron tongs, he killed him, probably by suffocation. After the father confessed, a forensic team was sent to the crime scene. The “body of the agent was found on the bed, with his hands and mouth tied with a towel,” according to the police.
The fact that the iron tongs were not only available but were used on the agent may suggest that the father had a backup plan in readiness in the event the agent was uncooperative. It could also suggest that the father was never intending on listening to the alleged rapist’s “side of the story” in the first place (as if a rapist can have a valid “side of the story”).
In any event, the father stated that after he killed the agent, he sat next to the body weeping. He then went to the police station to surrender where he stated:
“He was dead…I did not want to kill him.”
Thus, once again we see the futility of useless regret after the damage has already been done.
The police report that they recorded the father’s statement and took him into custody and that the victim’s body was sent out to be autopsied.
Tragically, the deceased agent, who was 45, had six children, four of them daughters.
The alleged killer is 36 years old.
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I have little sense of what kind of prison sentence the father is now facing. I am also concerned that the pregnant daughter will be chastised by the society in general. India is a land where rape appears to be even more common than it is here in the States, and that’s a scary thought.
The father’s understandable desire for vigilante justice notwithstanding, his hot-headed actions have caused far more harm than good. The sad truth is that the impulse to take the law into one’s own hands rarely results in much good for anyone involved. Although Bergman’s classic film makes for great theater, it provides little solid practical advice for dealing with the perils and pitfalls of real life and the infernal problems it sometimes presents.