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!
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