THE SILENCE THAT SCREAMS: HOW THE STATE IS PROTECTING THE SIT AND BETRAYING JUSTICE

 The assault on T. Jayant, one of the most visible faces of the “Justice for Soujanya” movement, is not just an act of brutality inside an interrogation room. It is a chilling message sent by a state apparatus that seems determined to shield the powerful and punish dissent. When Jayant walked into the SIT office after receiving a formal notice, he went as a citizen willing to cooperate. He came out—broken, abused, and hospitalised. That alone is a scandal. But the real scandal unfolded afterward: the state’s calculated refusal to act.

Jayant filed a detailed complaint with the Beltangady police. He produced medical records documenting the injuries inflicted on him inside the SIT premises. Under any normal application of law, an FIR would have been registered within minutes. The accused officials would have been arrested the same day. Custodial assault is not a “technical misconduct.” It is a non-bailable, criminal offence. Yet, in this case, the Beltangady police behaved as if nothing had happened. No FIR. No arrest. No suspension. No inquiry. The law suddenly lost its teeth.

Would the police react with such helplessness if a similar complaint was filed against an ordinary person? Absolutely not. If a vegetable vendor, an autorickshaw driver, or a low-ranking constable were accused of such violence, the police would have moved with aggressive speed. But here, the accused are SIT officers—tasked with investigating decades-old deaths, disappearances, and alleged rapes linked to one of Karnataka’s most powerful institutions. Suddenly the rules change. Suddenly the police forget their obligations. Suddenly the complainant is the problem—not the perpetrators.

The political establishment’s silence is even more damning. Home Minister Parameshwara, who had been giving a running commentary on the SIT’s progress, has vanished from the frame. The SIT chief, Pranab Mohanty, has not uttered a single sentence to deny, defend, or explain the allegations. The deputy chief minister, who earlier rushed to defend Dharmasthala interests, now pretends nothing happened. It takes a special kind of moral bankruptcy to watch a citizen being tortured and maintain strategic silence.

When a complaint supported by medical evidence is ignored, the conclusion is unavoidable: the police machinery is not malfunctioning—it is colluding. It is selecting whom to protect and whom to crush. It is bending to political expectations and institutional loyalties. And the SIT, which was supposed to uncover buried truths, now stands accused of burying justice itself.

This is not just a law-and-order failure. It is a betrayal of democracy. And the people of Karnataka must ask: if this can happen to a key witness, what chance does truth have?