The poor can grieve for their children just as well as the rich

How many of these names do you recognize? Sanjeev Nanda.  Manu Sharma.  Joran van der Sloot.

Actually these are just three names picked at random from what is a depressingly long list. Young men from different parts of the world who have a few things in common.

Joran is all the news these days in Holland and around the world.  Five years ago, he was the chief suspect in the disappearance of teenager Natalie Holloway in Aruba.  No conviction for that stuck despite his remarks that he’d had sex with her and then colluded in her being dumped from a boat into the sea.  Now he’s been arrested in Peru and confessed to the charges of killing Stephany Flores.  It seems that she used his laptop without permission, and he got angry and broke her neck after slapping her around a bit.  What’s a guy supposed to do when the girl he’s brought up to his room goes through his stuff right?

Sanjeev Nanda?  Well he’s the grandson of the Indian Naval bigwig who ran over six people in his mint new BMW and eluded the Delhi courts until the outcry got him in front of the courts again where he was sentenced to five years, came out in under two, and just had a la de da wedding in March attended by the local glitterati.  Oh and he’s gone back to work with Daddy’s business as an arms dealer and there are all sorts of clouds on that front too.

Manu Sharma? Well, all Indians know of the Jessica Lal case - model killed over a drink by pathetic, pathological though powerful Sharma and  who used politician Daddy’s influence to escape justice till popular sentiment finally called in his debts years later.  Currently calls Tihar Jail home.  Given a life sentence, but knowing India’s justice system, he should be out in a couple of years after his family has greased enough palms and the media attention has died away.

Van der Sloot, Nanda, Sharma - all rich boys with an overblown sense of ego and entitlement that gives them what they feel is a licence to kill.  And what’s worse, they often get the backing of their families and their rich circles.  I mean I can understand that your son is your son for better or for worse, but sheltering him after murder is a move too far.  What about the parents of their victims?  Don’t they grieve as much?

I remember I was in Delhi when Nanda had just been caught.  I was a guest in the house of some Delhi bigwigs who I’ve known all my life.  The woman was a daughter of an industrialist, her husband a High court judge.  I considered them rich and spoilt and beyond my circles,  but we had family connections that occasioned infrequent socializing.

“Poor boy” cooed my acquaintance.  “Such a good family he comes from.  They must see that and let him go.” No mention mind of the six people he’d ploughed through in his car after eight double whiskies on his night out.

His victims didn’t come from good families and so the feeling went,  their wives and parents could be pacified by a few thousand rupees.  Because the poor it seems, don’t grieve as much and as intensely as the rich.  And besides, they can always be bought off.

Joran’s lawyer/judge father who was protected him from the first murder is not going to be able to protect him now that he’s looking at 25 years in a Peruvian jail.  A terrifying prospect for any parent I’ll grant you.  But perhaps there are other parents out there who can breathe a sigh of relief that there is at least one less predator out there.  No guarantee that their girls will be safe from the Joran’s, Sanjay’s and Manu’s of this world.  That would be too much to ask.