It is unbelievable but true that statistics reveals that every hour, four women are raped in our country. This means that every 15 minutes a woman is raped in some place or the other in India. What have we done to our society?
We do not sufficiently appreciate the fact that it is the woman who gives birth to a new being, be it a man or a woman. The rapists in particular do not seem to be aware that it is from a woman that a new being springs to life, which consists of both men and women. If this very fact was put into their cranium, they would never have the audacity to rape and kill any woman.
It was disgusting to read about the Unnao girl from Uttar Pradesh and the young veterinary woman doctor from Hyderabad who were raped and brutally burnt alive to death. It is the utter failure of our criminal justice system which is responsible for the fearlessness of rapists to commit crimes against women. Our society will not change and our women will continue to be in danger, if we do not teach our young boys, at their tender age, to respect every woman as their mother or sister.
The perpetrators of Nirbhaya crime have not been put to death till date. There is a well-known legal Maxim which states that justice delayed, is justice denied. The long delay of seven years in administering justice to the victim has resulted in severe hardship and misery to Nirbhaya’s parents who are moving from pillar to post to get justice to their daughter.
When Hyderabad Police encountered the four alleged rapists, their action has been severely condemned by some of our arm chair fighters for social justice. It is true that encounters most of the time turn out to be fake, but the public anger was so much that they accepted this encounter even if it was fake.
During the days of colonialism, crimes against women were few and far between. Perhaps this was due to the stringent rule of punishing 10 innocents and by not allowing one criminal go scot free. With this fear in mind, people were more inclined to control their impulses with consequential less crimes. But due to change in Indian perception, which practises the concept of letting a hundred guilty people to be acquitted, but not let one innocent person be convicted, has in fact increased the frequency of crime rate in our country. It is grossly unfair on the part of our Indian judiciary to make those 100 innocent victims of the perpetrators of the crime to suffer at the cost of prevailing malpractices in the Indian system
The Government has established fast track courts to deliver swift and speedy justice to the victims and their families. However, the fast track courts in India are slower than normal courts of other countries.
In Nirbhaya’s case, the Fast Track Court was established in 2012, but till date no justice has been done to the victim and her family. Does the Fast Track Court take more than 7 years to deliver justice?
Can we expect a ray of hope in the dark tunnel of Judiciary system or should we expect no end to this dark tunnel?
