Crimes Against Women: Absurd Reactions And Ridiculous Laws! Part-II

The nationwide awareness and repulsion about the crimes against women and the media plus government initiated campaigns notwithstanding there has been hardly a let up in more heinous crimes. The horrifying question that looms large before us is “Do these in fact inspire male India to learn more about how to commit crimes against women rather than preventing them from such acts?” The ineffective and ridiculous rape laws in the country are also contributing for such an ominously emerging scenario.

Few days back another heinous gangrape of a 29 year old woman happened in a moving public bus in Punjab. Contrary to the ‘Bharat’ theory it was a line bus that normally plies in rural routes and there was question of the lady dressing improperly. Still, the bus driver and the conductor overshot her destination village and took the bus to a distant location where five more fiends joined for the crime. In another shocking case a serial rapist was caught and sentenced to death by a Maharashtra court, but a few years later the high court acquitted him due to lack of ‘evidence’. Within months of his release the sick criminal raped and murdered another nine year old girl in the holy town of Shirdi in Maharashtra. Reports of minors being kidnapped, raped and murdered keep coming in with ominous regularity over the past days from across the country.

The syndrome of ‘evidence’ is one more vexing issue with the ‘evidence’ often accentuating the trauma of the victims rather the criminals. If a rapist is found to be under influence of alcohol when he committed the crime ‘evidence’ against him gets altered to the effect that at the time of the act he was not in his senses and therefore he was not responsible for the crime. This most ridiculous interpretation seems to suggest that one can get drunk and commit all sorts of crimes and still not be accountable. Similarly, the most brutal fiend of the Delhi gangrape case has been tried in juvenile court since he fell short by six months from the juvenile age limit of 18.

The fast court in Delhi started hearing the gangrape case from last Monday, the 21^st of January 2013, and all proceedings have been carried out in camera. Absurd situations still came up with some lawyers coming up to defend the fiends and one fiend appealing to Supreme Court that the charged situation in the national capital could jeopardize ‘justice’ being given to him. The Supreme Court had to agree hearing this plea because the fiend was still a citizen of India with ‘rights’. The Human Rights Activists worsen the atmosphere of hypocrisy and gender bias further. They keep silent when atrocities are committed on women as if they have no rights, but become vociferous when the so-called ‘rights’ of the criminals seem to get violated.

Some progress has still been made since the 16^th December of 2012. Various initiatives have been going on around the country demanding stricter rape laws, change in juvenile justice system and end of the gender bias and discrimination. The three-member Justice JS Verma Committee that was appointed on December 23 2012 submitted its report on 23rd January to the Home Ministry suggesting sweeping changes, but falling short of supporting death penalty or chemical castration for the rapists or demanding changes in the juvenile laws. In fact, a public petition for prosecuting the juvenile criminal along with the  adult accused if the Delhi gangrape case got rejected by Juvenile Justice Board yesterday. Here again, the ‘rights’ of the criminals get the first priority rather than that of the victims whose rights get violated, robbed, exterminated, brutalized…again…again…and again. 

More positively, a group of alert people prevented another heinous gangrape from happening in the city of Aurangabad, Maharashtra. Four fiends on bikes stalked and attacked a girl waiting for her brother in the street late at night. The group not only saved the girl but also captured one of the four fiends. The captured rapist was a murderer arrested once and then let loose due to lack of 'evidence'. 

The Young India Movement for Change must not let up and must continue in all its might till crimes against women cease for good. The spontaneous protests must pour back and continue to throng the streets till ‘male’volent India change for better…and permanently.