Priya Ranjan Sahu
Finally, the nation has heaved a collective sigh of relief. The four men convicted in the 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old Delhi girl, widely known as ‘Nirbhaya’, were hanged to death March 20.
In the recent times, no crime against women has evoked such widespread concern in India as the Nirbhaya case. The inordinate delay in the execution of the death penalty in the case had made many lose faith in the judicial system. So much so that the extra-judicial killing of four persons accused of raping and murdering a girl in Hyderabad last December received overwhelming, almost frightening, support from many quarters.
The execution of the death sentence in the Nirbhaya case may offer a semblance of relief to concerned citizens, but it may not be enough to deter criminals from committing a heinous crime such as rape. That is because for every high-profile case such as Nirbhaya’s, thousands of other cases languish in utter neglect.
The National Crime Records Bureau report released by the central government in January said 33,356 rape cases were registered in 2018 — over 92 rapes every single day — of which just 27 per cent led to conviction. More than 1,28,000 rape cases were pending in Indian courts by the end of 2017, the year the courts could dispose only 18,300 such cases. Indian courts are simply not equipped to handle the high volumes of rape cases.
The National Law University in its annual report, ‘Death Penalty India 2019’, said the lower courts handed death penalty to 186 persons in “rarest of the rare” cases in 2018 and 40 per cent of them were related to commission of sexual offences and then murdering the victim. It will take years to execute these people as they pass through the judicial process, which lacks in resources and infrastructure.
It is not just the lack of judicial infrastructure that is to be blamed for the rise in rape cases. The police is still not adequately sensitised to deal with rape victims. Many incidents go unreported as victims do not feel reassured that they would get justice from the police. In many cases, as news reports have suggested, the victims or their relatives are discouraged or even ridiculed at police stations.
In the case of the rape and murder of the Hyderabad veterinarian, which led to the encounter killing of the accused, her relatives were initially turned away by the police. Ironically, the same police force later received accolades for killing the rape accused.
One may be frustrated with the judicial process, but cheering for extra-judicial killing can be dangerous – for democracy as well as personal safety. Public acceptance of encounters, fake or otherwise, may transform the men in uniform into dispensers of justice at kangaroo courts, which may claim the lives of innocent people as has been seen in the areas controlled by banned Leftwing extremists.
The only solution lies in better preparedness of the police and the judiciary. It will be much better for the police to nab the culprits, do a fair investigation and prepare a water-tight charge-sheet. The police need repeated orientation to deal with survivors of rape delicately and sensitively. The judiciary, in turn, must be strengthened with better manpower and infrastructure to speed up disposal of pending cases. Time-bound disposal of rape cases may repose people’s faith in the judiciary.
Then, there is a debate about abolition of death penalty. Many feel the death penalty is irreversible and has the potential to claim innocent victims. It is a sound argument.
However, especially in cases where the perpetrators commit rape and then murder the victim, there is no alternative but the capital punishment. That is because of the brutality such crimes entail.
It is up to the judicial system to follow up on cases such as Nirbhaya’s, that could be equally or more gruesome but have not received as much attention. Punishment should be meted out in such cases, even if it is by their death, to those who commit such crimes irrespective of their financial or social standing in a time-bound manner. Only then the souls of thousands of Nirbhayas will rest in peace.
Priya Ranjan Sahu is a journalist based in Odisha.
