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Vegas Shooting: Is it natural that every partner is responsible for the other's activity?

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Reshma
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One of the most heartbreaking and disastrous news that shook the entire world has been that of the recent Las Vegas shooting. This horrific incident was no less than a massacre claiming 59 lives and injuring 500 people. Stephen Paddock, 64, was the man behind this inhuman act.

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While the investigation is under process to find out what led to this mass murder, what's disturbing is that how Marilou Danley, the girlfriend of Paddock is being dragged into the whole scenario.

While it's important to investigate the family members of the murderer for official purposes, what's necessarily not important is to cover the woman on the front page of every newspaper and channel, attracting a lot of attention.

What could the reason possibly be?

The earlier reportage of almost all the media houses, turned their story towards Marilou Danley, focusing on her origin, her citizenship, and her race. Initially, the emphasize drawn on her Asian roots was prolific in nature but did she honestly deserve all the attention?Was it necessary to flash and highlight a woman just because she happened to be the man's girlfriend?

Kavitha Dorairaj, 40, a housewife from New Delhi talks about how women are usually seen as being responsible for their man's actions. She says, "It's unfortunate as to how the society perceives the wife or the girlfriend to be absolutely accountable for her man's behaviours. Relationships are a way of bringing two people in love together, who wish to spend their entire life with each other but that necessarily does not mean that they lose their individuality. It's unfair to think that one's mistake should be associated with their partner. At the end of the day, all of us are individuals with deep down secrets that no one is aware of and eventually, no one should be held accountable for the same".

It's true as to how we naturally comprehend spouses to be answerable for each other's activity. Also, how time and again the media have placed supreme importance on the spouse/partner of the perpetrator of the crime.

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There have been instances where in fact the officials have also filed cases on the spouses of the criminals. One such case was the Veerappan case. One of the most wanted sandalwood smuggler in the early 2000s in Tamil Nadu was Veerappan. He was eventually killed by the Special Task Force police in 2004. Muthulakshmi is the widow of Veerappan and she oddly received attention more than her criminal husband.

The police deliberately booked her for various crimes carried out by her husband and his gang. Five charges were booked against her. These included killing police personnel in Palar blast, killing elephants, smuggling sandalwood between 1991-1993, and kidnapping Rajkumar with Veerappan. Though, later she was acquitted in almost all cases. It was unfair that she was also considered a criminal just because she was Veerappan's wife.

There have been various cases as the one mentioned above. Often undue importance is given to the spouses, especially women, for events that most of them are not connected with.

It's essential that we as a society progress in our way of thinking and start analyzing situations from various angles. The media needs to be sensitive and responsible in representing news as one inappropriate word can cause huge destruction. Speculations and fabricated stories should be avoided as they are not part of the work ethics. Moreover, no one deserves to be suspected on the basis of their nationality.

Criminals deserve punishment and so do their accomplices, but not the innocent people around them. To conclude, what we all need to work towards is to prevent such terrible events and progress towards world peace.

Click here to know more about how the spouses were questioned  for their husband’s crimes.

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Pic Credit: NBC News

Also Read: Hrithik-Kangana Controversy: Two Sides of the Coin

Reshma Ganeshbabu is an intern with SheThePeople.TV. The views expressed in this column are author’s own.

 

Las Vegas Shooter Marilou Danley Stephen Paddock vegas shooting
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