In Mumbai, you can stroll anywhere, at any time. In Mumbai, women are safe. In Mumbai, people are civilised, cultured - meaning really not like North India!

Really? Is all this really true? Why don't you ask that to the bruised and battered 10-year-old (10 year-old , for god's sake) girl lying in a hospital in Chembur? Asma Sheikh is a stinging slap on the face of all of us idiots who believe that Mumbai is this great safe land. The land of the erudite. The land of the sane.

It isn't. It is as safe or unsafe as any other major city in this sexually repressed country.

Here's what happened to poor Asma - she was returning home when a bunch of goons in a jeep, apparently rich brats, zoomed in and began to pass lewd comments on her and tried to molest her. Scared out of her wits (how else does a 10-year-old girl react?), she ran and her skirt caught the jeep. The boys, by now trying to flee the scene, just roared ahead dragging the poor girl along with them. One of the wheels even went over her arm breaking it in two places.

Her mother has said that her the underside of her legs have been bruised so badly that the skin has almost come off entirely and will, in all probability, need plastic surgery. See the story carefully, very carefully. Hear the girl wail in pain, listen to her mother saying - I saw the boys in front of me, but what could I do?

That's what all decent people like you and me feel these days? What can we do? Who is on our side? We never have the money, nor the contacts to really fight back and we are molested, abused day after day. Either its the rich, brats like these who have no business getting behind a jeep anyway (the driver didn't even have a licence), or its criminal goons who get away with anything because they are just so brazen.

In a country of ever rising incidents of rape and molestation, of countless sex crimes, our politicians are still saying - don't talk about sex education! How repressed and insane are we?

Someone said to me today - this is just a stray incident.

That's just such a typical, educated, middle class response - balanced, moderate, always objective. I'm sorry, today I am saying that I WILL NOT BE MODERATE WHEN A 10-YEAR-OLD IS MOLESTED. I DON'T CARE IF THAT'S EXPECTED OF ME BECAUSE I AM A JOURNALIST. PEOPLE WHO EXPECT THAT OF ME CAN TAKE A HIKE. I AM A CITIZEN FIRST, BEFORE A JOURNALIST, AND I HAVE THE RIGHT TO RESPOND AS A CITIZEN. AND IF THAT MAKES ME A BAD JOURNALIST, SO BE IT. I WOULD MUCH RATHER BE A BETTER HUMAN BEING.

AND THE CITIZEN IN ME SAYS - THRASH THE CULPRITS, THRASH THEM PUBLICLY, LET THE WORLD KNOW WHO THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY DID AND WHICH FAMILY THEY COME FROM. LET THEIR PARENTS TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THESE MONSTERS THEY CREATED.

I am tired of these escapist statements that these are stray incidents. They are not. They happen every other day. Some are reported, some are not. Let one woman who has travelled in a Mumbai train tell you that Mumbai is safe. No one will. Because they face abuse every, single day and still the myth persists that Mumbai is safe. It isn't. Deal with it.

Maybe it was once upon a time. Not now. Yes, it is better than Delhi and north India - but then even the jungle is much better than Delhi and north India. That is no comparison. Delhi and north India have animals roaming the streets. Nothing is worse than living in those cities. But Mumbai is certainly not safe.

It's like that other myth - Mumbai is cosmopolitan. Yeah, really? A city where is most parts the minorities cannot find a home. A city where entire chunks are only for vegetarians, rich Gujjus and Jains? A city where a Muslim friend of mine could not find a home for more than six months because he was a single man? Cosmopolitan? You must be kidding!

The only justice Asma can get is efficient, immediate punishment for the boys. Give them the harshest punishment possible, make an example of them, so that no brat ever dares to do something like this.

And let your girls carry pepper spray (my sister used to carry a blade and then a pocket knife all the years she travelled in a train and bus in Mumbai, a good eight years), arm your girls, let them fight back and fight to kill. I would love to see a few dead molestors on the street. Really, I really would. It would really set an example.

Mumbai is not safe. Repeat: Mumbai is not safe.

And if the Mumbaikar does not accept that now and does not do something about it now, if the protest doesn't happen now, then remember - we will become a Delhi and then see how you like it!