CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS NOT SOLUTION!

Richard Claxton Gregory (Dick Gregory) has once said that “if I am woman and I am walking down the street naked, you still don’t have a right to rape me”, so putting this phrase here is to clarify that no one has right to have sexual act without the consent of that person. There could be other burning reasons how the consent has been obtained and I don’t want to discuss anything about the consent else I will lose the track and will discuss the consent issue some other time. Recently I heard some politician /people talking about moral policing like what to wear and what not etc. Even there are people who are raising the moral questions etc like what the girl was doing such an odd hours etc. I have seen that in rape cases, generally people condemn such gruesome acts, but meantime they also raise question on character of victims which is very unhealthy I feel. Our Supreme Court in the case of Narender Kumar Vs State of NCT of Delhi, Criminal Appeal No.2066-67/2009 observed that even in cases where there is some material to show that the rape victim (woman) was habituated to sexual intercourse, no inference of the victim being a woman of “easy virtues” or women of “loose moral character” can be drawn. Such a woman has a right to protect her dignity and cannot be subjected to rape only for that reason. She has a right to refuse to submit herself to sexual intercourse to anyone and everyone because she is not a vulnerable object or prey for being sexually assaulted by anyone and everyone. Court even reprimanded trial courts that merely because a woman is of easy virtue, her evidence cannot be discarded on that ground alone rather it is to be cautiously appreciated. Supreme Court in another case of Vijay @ Chinee v. State of Madhya Pradesh revisited the law relating to evidence of a victim to determine the liability of an accused in an offence of rape. The Court examined its earlier decisions to hold that the evidence of the victim, if found credible, was alone sufficient to convict the accused, meaning thereby, evidence of victim is self sufficient to convict Accused for offences committed by him, however, to render justice court must act with sensitivity and appreciate the evidence in totality of the background of the entire case. Sensing the loopholes in the statute, Supreme Court of India in the case of Sakshi Vs Union of India reported at (1999) 6 SCC 591 directed Law Commission of India to review the law on rape and submits its report. Law Commission of India in its 172nd Report dated 25.03.2000 recommended for widening the scope of the offence in Section 375 and to make provisions gender neutral, but Our central government keep sleeping on the report for more than 12 years and wakeup on October, 2012 and introduced Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2012 on 19.10.2012, so if there is any lapses, it is on the part of Central Government which is not sensitive to amend the law on time but waits for happening of some gruesome acts. They (MP/MLA) being our elected representative have to raise our voice in the parliament and make appropriate changes in the law, but they are more concerned to fill-up their coffer and why they shall not do so as they are also belong to same society from where we are. I would say like people, like king as politics is also a reflection of society.

STATISTICS

There are large section of citizens who feels that woman are safe in foreign countries, however, statistics draws a different picture. As per data available on www.rainn.org, in every 2 minutes, someone in U.S. is being sexually assaulted and each year there are about 207754 sexually assaulted victims. It is also stated that 54% sexual assaults cases are not reported to police and 97% of rapists never spend a day in jail. Situation back home in India is also not good, as per Report of National Crime Records Bureau in year 2011 total reported victims of rape were 24270 out of which 24206 were reported rape cases. In Britain as per statistics around 400000 women are sexually assaulted and 80000 women are raped each in year 2010 and 2011, so, picture outside world is also not rosy as it seems.

PSYCHOLOGY OF RAPE & RAPIST

As I have been observing that raping of women is a crime which is increasing all over worlds. People generally understood that rape is a primarily sexual acts but it is a crime of violence against one individual to another individual since individual at receiving end is a women, the violation result into rape. In simple word it can be said that it is all about power, power to exploit and power to get things done no matter what it is. Dr.Menachiam Amir, an Israeli criminologist studied rape and rapists in Philadelphia between 1958 to 1960 and theorised that rapists fell into 2 categories which he labelled (a) criminal and (b) psychiatric[1]. He viewed, the criminal rapist, as a poorly educated man from the lower socioeconomic level who had a criminal record of offenses such as exhibitionism, fetishism, etc. He saw him as generally antisocial and easily influenced by his peers. The psychiatric rapist was viewed as a well educated man from a higher economic bracket. He was believed to rape because of some personal problems or inadequacy and he may feel remorse after the assault. Sociologist says that human is a social animal so I will say that sexual assault is an animal desire. If we ask an question from a Psychologist that why men rape women, a psychologist will say that rape is caused because of some psychological illness within the offender, however, if we put the same question to a sociologist they would say that rapist are normal people and rape is due to an expression of gender inequality and used to intimidate women and to keep them in their place as such person believe that male are dominant.

REVENGE OR JUSTICE

We are living in a state which is being ruled in accordance with law and not in anarchy state where one give punishment to another as per his whims and fancy. It is requirement of law that justice not to be done but it seems to be done. The real justice requires people to suffer for their wrongdoing and to suffer in appropriate to the severity of their crime so that other would be wrongdoer be deterred from committing the crime. In the case of Dhananjoy Chatterjee, Supreme Court observed that “Justice demands that courts should impose punishment buffeting the crime so that the courts reflect public abhorrence of the crime”. In the gang-rape case (16th December, 2012), people are demanding capital punishment for the accused persons, if we see the body language of such person demanding death penalty the demand is not for justice but it is more like retaliation so what is their argument? Will death penalty reduce crime against women? Will death penalty work as deterrence? I can’t say whether death penalty deters more than life imprisonment, but didn’t you think that anticipation of death makes punishment more severe than just hanging criminal on gallows. If we take the example of rape case again accused persons were more afraid to being caught and because of that fear they stopped all their activities and tried to destroy crucial evidences by washing the Bus involved in the crime. In IPC, there is death penalty for murder, my argument is whether penalty has deterred criminals from doing murder. In fact, rate of murder has increased. Death penalty brutalises society and people become more inhuman. The purpose of rule of law is to do the justice and deter others from wrongdoing, I am of the view that death penalty does not fulfil both the requirements, so it should be abolished/moratorium be given. There will be various counter arguments against abolition of death penalty and people will give statistics, so where is the solution? so that people be deter from wrongdoing, I am of the view that enforcement of law in this country is very poor. People take pride on breaking laws, like no one follows traffic rules, people are ready to take laws in their hand and they are self concentrated people. You go in the market, shops will remain open till mid night. People don’t know that as per shop establishment act, they are supposed to close their shops by 8 pm except few shops like medical stores etc. You will also see that shop-owners would have encroached footpath which was being created for people. One regulation created under Delhi Police Act prohibits any person to sell or expose for sale any goods on any road or street, but people are still selling and encroaching pavement. The beat constable will remain silent as he has taken his cut which got distributed till minister level and I challenge, even God cannot prove this thing in the court of law.

So if I summarise the above, the need of hours is:-

  • Adoption of gender neutral laws
  • Enforcement of Laws in strict sense
  • Improvement of Police Establishment/Infrastructure
  • Improvement in Justice Delivery Systems
  • Rigorous imprisonment in corruption
  • changes in Education system
 
Would request you to give your comments!





[1] http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1981/3/81.03.06.x.html

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