TALIBANESQUE  CRUSADE;

This week, in an utterly reprehensible invasion of privacy, Mumbai police raided hotels in Madh Island and Aksa beach and rounded up 13 couples because they were not married. They were booked under the Bombay Police Act for “indecent behaviour in public” – a bizarre charge as they were in the privacy of their rooms. They were let off after being shamed and humiliated and made to pay a fine.

This state-sponsored moral crusade needs to stop. The state has no right to interfere with the private lives of adults – who they wish to get intimate with, what they watch, or indeed, what they choose to eat. It has no business forcing people to conform to its own straitjacketed vision of morality. Among other things, this Talibanesque crusade means that police resources get diverted from tasks that they really ought to be focussing on – such as combating crime. The job of law enforcement agencies is to enhance security, not undermine it. The Mumbai hotel raids must be thoroughly probed and those responsible taken to task.