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Disclaimer: Graphic images of rape ahead. Reader discretion advised.

You know what’s worse than fear or incapacity? Apathy.

We humans can feel other beings’ pain and suffering. But more importantly, we have the ability to do something about it: raise our voices, defend the weak and stop the wrongdoers.

But when we fall prey to apathy, and feign utter indifference to another human being’s plight, do we even call ourselves human beings then?

In a shocking incident in Visakhapatnam, a woman sleeping on a pavement was raped by a man in broad daylight. Even more disgusting part? The onlookers did not try and stop the act but rather filmed it!

What, in the name of God, has happened to this world, you wonder? Are we that far gone to let such a heinous crime go on before our eyes without making a single effort to stop it? The facts of this case seem to prove so.

The 43-year-old woman had recently left her home due to a dispute and was sleeping on the pavement of New Railway Colony in Tadichetlapalem when the accused, a 23-year-old truck cleaner named Ganji Siva, assaulted her.

In an interview with Hindustan Times, Visakhapatnam IV town police sub-inspector K Suresh said,

“Apparently, she was very weak as she had not eaten for several hours and was sleeping on the footpath under the shadow of a tree, when Siva, in an inebriated condition assaulted her sexually.”

What will stun you to the very core is that this incident occurred in a busy street at 2.30 pm, with a dozen people passing by but not raising a finger to put an end to it!

Instead, some of these ‘witnesses’ stood shamelessly mute and filmed the horrific ordeal on their phones. It wasn’t until an auto driver by the name of RG Srinu took a quick video and alerted the police about it that they rushed to the site.

Although, it should be marked that even he did nothing to stop the crime.

“It clearly shows how the people have become insensitive to attacks on women,” said the policeman.

By the time the police got to the crime scene, the accused had left on his bike. However, they managed to trace Siva and arrest him in the evening.

Siva was produced before the court this morning and remanded to two weeks of judicial custody.

“We have booked a case under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code,” said Suresh.

Meanwhile, the police has sent the rape survivor to the King George Hospital for a medical examination and are still trying to source more information on her.

You can watch the horrific video here.

Women raped in broad daylight on a footpath in Visakhapatnam, incident caught on camera #WakeUpIndia pic.twitter.com/sS0NrNhkNR — TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) October 23, 2017

The policeman’s words, although harsh, are the stark cruel reality we live in where a woman gets raped in the middle of a busy street and not a single person has a shred of humanity to help her.

Their inaction has let an innocent woman’s life get destroyed. Is this for real?

This society that has become so immune to atrocities against women, against fellow human beings, needs to be shown the mirror. And the words of American psychologist Rollo May do just that: Apathy adds up, in the long run, to cowardice.

Do we really want to be cowards, then? For now, at least, we are.