New Delhi: While public resentment is growing over the increasing number of crimes against women in India, particularly in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), the political leadership does not seem to see any reason to worry.
Incidents of rape and murder have become routine in India. In fact, UP Director General of Police (DGP) A L Banerjee said as much on Thursday.
“I admit that rape incidents are happening. This is the routine every year. That is why police, administration, law and order exist,” Banerjee told reporters in Lucknow, reacting to reports about a woman found hanging from a tree in Bahraich, 130km from the state capital of Lucknow, after being raped.
The woman had allegedly complained to the police about the local liquor mafia recently.
The killing shares similarities to the case of two young cousin sisters, aged 14 and 15, who were gang-raped and murdered a fortnight ago in Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh. They were also found hanging from a tree.
The Badaun case has already made international headlines.
The young girls were abducted and then attacked when they went into the fields to relieve themselves. Two policemen are accused of being criminal accessories in the attack.
The families of the victims have alleged that the police officers initially refused to help when they found out they were from a lower caste. The family refused to allow the bodies of the girls to be cut down from the tree until police took up the case.
Three suspects have been arrested and two policemen held on suspicion of attempting to cover up the crime. The family now demands a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Appalled by the rape and murder of the two sisters, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has demanded action against sexual violence and appealed to society as a whole to reject the destructive attitude of “boys will be boys”.
“In just the last two weeks, we have seen despicable attacks against women and girls around the world, from Nigeria to Pakistan and from California to India. I was especially appalled by the brutal rape and gruesome murder of two teenaged women in India who had ventured out because they did not have access to a toilet,” Ban said last Tuesday.
Decrying the recent attacks against women and girls around the world, Ban stressed that “violence against women is a peace and security issue. It is a human rights issue. It is a development issue. We say no to the dismissive, destructive attitude of ‘boys will be boys’. Together, we can empower more people to understand that violence against women degrades us all,” Ban said at the launch of a video campaign on ending sexual violence through gender equality.
Another incident took place in UP on Tuesday when a woman who had gone to find out why her husband was arrested was allegedly gang-raped by three policemen inside the police station.
The case surfaced when the victim appeared before the Hamirpur Superintendant of Police and narrated the ordeal the next day.
She told the senior police officers that she met sub inspector Rahul Pandey, the officer who arrested her husband. She was made to sit inside the police station for about 20 minutes, and then two constables dragged her to a remote corner where she was allegedly raped for three hours.
Backed by the strongest electoral mandate in three decades, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that respecting and protecting women should be a priority of the 1.25 billion people in this country.
“All these incidents should make us introspect. The government will have to act. The country will not wait and people will not forget,” Modi told lawmakers in the Parliament.
The Badaun rape is not the first rape in India, and will not be the last. A report by PRS Legislative Survey in 2011 looked at the abysmal state of women’s safety in India. According to the report, there were 23,582 rape incidents in India that year — almost 65 rapes everyday and around three every hour.
However, the number of rapes are grossly under-reported in India, a sign of the social stigma surrounding sexual assault. Many still believe that the rape victim has lost her honour in the attack and should be shunned. At times, the victim is seen as the provoker of the crime.
This is despite stringent anti-rape legislation in India, which was expanded last year. The legislation says that lack of physical resistance is immaterial for constituting an offence. It all adds that except in certain aggravated situations, the punishment will be imprisonment for not less than seven years, which may extend to imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.
In aggravated situations, punishment will be rigorous imprisonment for a term that shall not be less than 10 years but which may extend to imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.
A new section, 376A has been added which states that if a person committing the offence of sexual assault, “inflicts an injury which causes the death of the person or causes the person to be in a persistent vegetative state, shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than 20 years, but which may extend to imprisonment for life, which shall mean the remainder of that person’s natural life, or with death.”
In the case of gang-rape, persons involved regardless of their gender shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than 20 years, but which may extend to life and shall pay compensation to the victim which shall be reasonable to meet the medical expenses and rehabilitation of the victim.
So clearly there is no need for an increase in punishment or in speed of the trial. What is required is a systemic change. Rape can be considered the worst form of human violation. It is a way of subjugating women and an attempt to establish male superiority through violence. The solution lies outside the law, in the mindset of the people, particularly of men.
There should be gender sensitisation classes in primary and secondary education. Bureaucrats, officers concerned with maintaining law and order should also be sensitised. Quick trials can have adverse impact as one should have enough time to argue out a case. A time limit of one to two years is reasonable.
Statistically speaking, rape in India is the fourth most common crime against women in India. According to the National Crime Records Bureau 2013 annual
report, 24,923 rape cases were reported across India in 2012. Out of these, 24,470 were committed by a relative or neighbour; in other words, the victim knew the alleged rapist in 98 per cent of the cases. According to 2012 statistics, New Delhi has the highest number of rape reports among Indian cities, while Jabalpur has the per capita incidence of reported rapes.
Compared to other developed and developing countries, incidence rates of rape per 100,000 people are quite low in India. The National Crime Records Bureau suggests a rape rate of 2 per 100,000 people. This compares to 8.1 rapes per 100,000 people in Western Europe, 14.7 per 100,000 in Latin America and 40.2 per 100,000 in Southern African region.
