Don’t misunderstand, please. The pictures of the unsavoury incident were a masterstroke, exposing on camera, what is, for millions of women in this country, a quotidian crime. And the accompanying report on how the police refused to register it implicitly reminded us why it would remain one.

So far, so good.

Then all hell broke loose. By the next day, every newspaper and television channel had joined the romp, to protest against the ‘outrage’. Armies of ‘outraged’ female reporters marched into the streets to solicit support — and sound bites — from their suffering sisters. Others hounded the victims and their families who steadfastly refused to bite, except to admit that the attack had ‘shamed’ the honour of their clan. (That it also happened to be a shameful assault on a close relative was obviously not the point.)

By day three, the case had been publicly hijacked. While Bollywood starlets queued up to recount how they had been similarly violated, Halla Bol star

Ajay Devgan pleaded with the victims to ‘speak up’ and book the culprits — as he has so bravely done in his movie.

Alas, they did neither. But luckily Shiv Sena scion Udhav Thackeray was on hand to do the needful. “Those who committed this crime are migrants, outsiders,” he thundered ominously. “If the police refuse to take action, hand them over to us. We will blacken their faces and parade them around the city.”

Luckily, again, the police did take action — after some initial, uh, hesitation — and nabbed the perverts within sixty hours. More gratifyingly, Police Commissioner D.N. Jhadhav atoned for calling the incident “a mountain made out of a molehill” by vowing to launch an Anti Molestation Campaign on the lines of his famous Anti-Drunk Driving Campaign, which has recently made him something of a press hero. Meanwhile Home Minister R.R. Patil has promised to conduct a fast track trial and appeal against bail to the accused.

Media activism? It’s a tempting proposition, except for one tiny oversight: on New Year’s Eve, just hours after the Juhu nightclub attack, a minor girl in Latur, Maharashtra, was found hanging dead from a tree. She had been raped and murdered by four local youths. Interestingly, this ‘incident’, was reported in Mumbai nearly a week later, then politically muffled and appropriately relegated to page seven — while the Juhu scandal continued to hog the headlines. Presumably, it was not ‘outrageous’ enough.

Why? Now this may sound facetious, but my guess is, because Latur is not, well, Juhu. And because thirteen-year-old Taslima was no NRI from Texas.

To put it bluntly, by selectively exposing how women are exploited, the media and civil society are doing precisely the same. And, all too often, the line between quixotic agitation and gratuitous titillation is getting thin, too thin. It makes us wonder if the real story behind the Juhu nightclub fracas is about fighting crimes against women, or about grabbing eyeballs. Now that is definitely something we women can do without.

farah.baria@expressindia.com