Is it time India implemented an emergency lifeline similar to 911?

Very often, we come across lot of reports on domestic violence in newspapers, magazines, TV channels etc, but only on a few occasions (probably not) do we realize the intensity of these incidents with respect to what has happened or why it has happened? And why should we after all? We have got our own lives to live and our own problems to bother about.

However, when domestic violence of any nature happens in our neighborhood or to people whom we know, we tend to get concerned and raise questions.

I am writing this piece to share my concerns on an incident that happened on the Thursday the 11th of June 2009. It is about an incident that happened in a well educated; well to do family and not the kind of family set up with which one usually associates domestic violence with. This family was very well known to my wife's family and my wife shared a very intimate relationship with the lady who died in the incident. She was married for more than 40 years. Her husband abusing her physically or verbally was a daily ritual and every neighbor around them acknowledges this fact. She lived all her life getting abused by her husband and probably had even got habited to that. However, this incident was not like the hundreds that had happened earlier. Like any other day they had a small argument, over the family visiting Kerala and it turned uglier when the husband hit her with a iron rod at the back of her head. She fell down along with her 10 month old grandson and started bleeding profusely. She died on the spot.
I was there for the funeral along with my wife and I cannot say how sorry I felt for that lady who led a painful life all through and died a painful death.
Like I mentioned earlier, incidents like these keep happening very often but we tend to get bothered only if it happens in our immediate neighborhood or to our people whom we know.
I guess these incidents occur because people have taken our system for granted. Our legal system takes ages to deliver a judgment and at times the culprit might walk away free.
On the backdrop of this incident and many similar to these I personally feel that there needs to be a 911 sort of emergency helpdesk to deal with such situations. Probably we cannot rewrite the fate of these people, but if we can at least hope for a system which can instill fear, then people resorting to a spineless act of domestic violence will think twice