Her charred body was found on Thursday morning, near Shadnagar town. Such kind of news emanates from every part of our vast nation and is not geographic specific to India. This time it is Telangana, and the entire country was angered by this heinous crime. The outrage out-poured on social media which shook the entire world as it did in the Nirbhaya case seven years ago in Delhi. Following this the four alleged perpetrators of this heinous crime have been nabbed by the Telangana police. In yet another incident in the same State on November 29 a 15-year-old girl was rescued by public from two persons who were trying to abduct her.
It is reported that the victim had called her sister around 9.45 pm and told her that her two-wheeler got punctured and somebody offered to help her and took her vehicle for repair. She also said that she was scared due to presence of some truck drivers near her. Later her mobile remained switched-off. When the reporters asked the Telangana Home Minister Mohammad Mahmood Ali on this incident after the recovery of the victim’s charred body, he outrageously shamed the victim by saying, “She is a doctor, she is educated. Why did she call her sister first? She should have called 100 first.” Later he denied giving any such comment on television which the entire country watched.
Neither the Chief Minister of Telangana, nor the Prime Minister has mentioned one word on this horrific crime. However, some celebrities like Salman Khan, Virat Kohli, Akshay Kumar and Vijay Deverakonda and few others, did express their anguish and anger on twitter by condemning the incident.
Although in the horrific Nirbhaya rape and murder case in Delhi, the court has pronounced its judgement and it has been seven years since the incident took place but the culprits are still languishing in jail on tax-payers money. Have we become that insensitive? Why till date have police reforms not been undertaken? Slow judicial deliveries, weak and insensitive police investigation and behaviour towards the victim or her kin, has in fact, emboldened the criminals and rapists and there is no fear of law.
Last year, “The Guardian” had reported that India is the world’s most dangerous country for women due to the high risk of sexual violence and being forced into slave labour, according to a poll of global experts. Afghanistan and Syria ranked second and third in a Thomson Reuters Foundation survey of 548 experts on women’s issues, followed by Somalia and Saudi Arabia. The poll was a repeat of a survey in 2011, in which experts saw Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, India and Somalia as the most dangerous countries for women.
As per the data released by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on October 21 this year, as many as 32,559 rapes were reported in India in 2017 and the accused were known to the victims in 93.1 per cent of the cases. According to the report, of the 30,299 such cases, the accused were members of the victim’s family in 3,155. As many as 16,591 rape cases were against “family friends”, employers, neighbours or other known persons. In 10,553 cases, the accused were friends, online friends, live-in partners or separated husbands of the victims.
The maximum number of 5562 rape cases in 2017 was lodged in Madhya Pradesh, 97.5 per cent of which were committed by known persons. Rajasthan followed with 3,305 cases, 87.9 per cent of which were committed by known persons. In Maharashtra, 98.1 per cent rape cases were against friends, associates or relatives. All 40 rape cases recorded in Manipur were against persons known to the victim.
It appears that these crimes have just become statistical data. As the saying goes justice delayed is justice denied. An overall analysis of cases pending in the country also shows an interesting trend. As per the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) as of December 27, 2018, Lucknow district stood at fifth position in terms of most number of criminal cases pending in the country (2.4 lakh). The other top most districts were Mumbai (Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court), Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Pune.
What matters is quick justice and that can only be done by support of professional investigation by the police so that it helps the judiciary to nail the culprit by using the laws framed by our legislators. Police reforms are long overdue. The Supreme Court had directed the States to review the progress on police reforms in 2006 and cracked the whip on States which were reluctant to initiate reforms. There was some movement towards police reforms but thereafter everything was shelved. Why?
