How-to-rape-and-dump-victim games flood Punjab markets

Monday, 28/01/2013

http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=60987&boxid=63477&uid=&dat=2013-01-28

Chandigarh : This not only rubbishes the outrage that rocked the country over the Delhi gangrape incident but also cocks a snook at the indulgence and pro-active stance of the government, judiciary and well meaning sections of the society to check such incidents whose number is growing by the day.

Believe it or not, the electronics and mobile software markets in Punjab and Chandigarh are flooded with video and mobile games that make you step into the shoes of a “rapist”, prompt you how to commit the act and dump the victim; and virtually test your hidden “rape skills”. And their sales are expectedly outstripping by the day.

Interestingly but intriguingly, these games/ software give the “rapists” option to choose the venue from among a moving bus, railway station, public park and roadside, places where most such incidents generally take place in real life.

Discreet inquiries made by a team of Daily Post reporters while posing as decoy buyers, revealed that such games— “Grand Theft Auto (GTA) Series” and “Rape Lay”—can be easily had off the shelves of electronics and software shops in Sector 17 and Sector 22 of Chandigarh, and at most shops dealing in imported goods in Amritsar, Jalandhar and in Gur Mandi, Model Town and Ghumar Mandi of Ludhiana.

While most of the traders are selling the pirated versions procured from Palika Bazaar in New Delhi, the more enterprising and avaricious among them have gone the extra mile to procure the original versions from USA and Japan where all such games have been banned following a lot of hue and cry.“Initially, when these games were launched, there was not much demand in the market because people used to procure them from their friends and relations abroad. But once these were banned there, not only locals but also their visiting friends from USA and Canada, are placing the orders, especially post-Delhi gangrape incident”, the owner of an imported goods shop in Ghumar Mandi in Ludhiana, told Daily Post.

The rates, say traders, vary from customer to customer and version to version. While Japanese game “Rape Play” is sold for anything between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,000, the “Grand Theft Auto” (adult version), is sold for as much as Rs 5,000. The pirated version being uploaded on mobile and laptops in Jalandhar and Chandigarh, comes as cheap as Rs 500.

The “Rape Play” game is a molestation simulation that runs with a storyline prompting the player to rape the girl after she gets him arrested by the police following an eve-teasing complaint at metro station. Subsequently, testing the player’s “rape skills”, the player is allowed to take revenge by groping and following her mother and two teenaged sisters in a moving train, a park and a restroom. At the end of the game, either you get killed by the victim while committing the crime, or impregnate her and later ask her to undergo abortion.

“The game has provisions for as many as four players who can don the character of rapists and commit a gangrape too”, a shop keeper in Sector 17 of Chandigarh told Daily Post.

Similarly, GAT, another easily available game, not only guides one how to commit a real rape and prompts the player with tips such as ‘push the girl to corner” or ‘tie her hands with handkerchief” etc. Not only this, it goes on to prod one to finish the evidence by giving options of murdering the victim either by crushing her under the car, or by throwing her from a high-rise building.