How brutal can life be? I was among the very few of those who did not want to believe the rumour that someone was walking around in the flea market of Quatre-Bornes with a contaminated syringe and infecting people as a mode of revenge for having contracted the HIV virus himself. The same rumour was circulated through e-mails.

It was only on the night of 17th January 2006 at Jeetoo Hospital where my mother was taken for an emergency that the cruel reality struck me right in the face. The blow was indeed very hard to digest and I could not believe what I saw and what I heard. The 13-year-old girl was still in her blue uniform when she came out of the emergency casualty room holding tightly to the arm of her mother and accompanied by her brother who was also in his school uniform. Her arm had a large dressing. The suffering and the trauma on the faces of the whole family could be seen from a distance.

I approached the mother and cajoled her to talk to me. With tears in her eyes, she told me that her daughter had phoned her at work crying to tell her that somebody had planted a needle in her arm. In a split second she was on the scene of the crime and took her daughter to the nearest police station and then to Jeetoo hospital. The doctors did not wait a second. She was given emergency drugs and a sample of her blood taken to be sent to the virology department.

The distraught mother added: ?Yes, I read through the Internet that somebody was doing that to people but little did I realize that it would happen to my own daughter. All I can do now is pray.?

While the girl was being given the proper treatment in hospital, the police on the other hand were quick to react and it did not take them long to get hold of the criminal. Apparently a teenager?

The past two to three years have been the kal yug, the dark era for women. Mauritius has known the most horrific cases of crime, murder, rape and violence against them. And now, to add insult to injury, the dreams of a young girl have been destroyed. Her life is shattered. She is psychologically too fragile to go to school. The medication administered is giving her nausea and diarrhea. Is it not time for the authorities to react and put up a press release to tell people what to do in such a case?

Loga VIRAHSAWMY