Amid the outcry over the barbarous murder of a 3-year-old in Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh district, there’s a need to take a look at how our judicial system treats people convicted of sexual crimes.
Let’s rewind to December 2012 when the country erupted in outrage and anger over what later came to be known as the Nirbhaya case. On the night of December 16, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was beaten, gang-raped and tortured when she was travelling in a private bus with her friend. Six people, including the driver and a minor, brutalized the woman in the moving bus, and later dumped her on a roadside without clothes. She was in a Delhi hospital for 11 days and was transferred to Singapore for emergency treatment. But she couldn’t survive only for two more days.
The gang rape case generated widespread protests across the country, with Delhi being the epicenter of candle-light marches and demonstrations. Everyone wanted the six accused to be hanged for their brutal act.
They were arrested. One of them was a minor so he was sent to home for juvenile delinquents; five were sent to Tihar Jail where one of them, Ram Singh, died in March 2013, possibly by hanging himself. Four accused were found guilty of rape and murder and, on September 13, 2013, were sentenced to death by hanging.
Meanwhile, the case became a focal point for new rape laws. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2013, brought several new laws. Six new fast-track courts were created to hear rape cases. The Nirbhaya case also witnessed an improvement in the number of women willing to file a crime report.
From September 13, 2013, the day of sentencing, to now, it’s been almost seven years. The judicial processes meandered from the Delhi high court to the Supreme Court to the President’s office. All of them upheld the death sentences but the four rapists of Nirbhaya are yet to face their nemesis.
The country is again on the boil over Aligarh’s Twinkle. The 3-year-old was strangled to death and her eyes gouged out because her father asked a man to return the Rs 10,000 that he owed to him. The man, identified as Zahid along with his partner Aslam, kidnapped the toddler on May 31 this year, strangled her, put the body in a freezer and dumped it in a garbage heap when the stench became unbearable. When the mutilated body was found on June 2, it had maggots and dogs were trying to feast on it. The gruesome incident occurred in Tappal, 90km from Delhi.
The country is outraged again. Everyone whose voice matters is seething with anger on the social media. People want the accused to hanged. People have promised to end their investigation soon and file the charge sheet in court in the shortest time. The trial will most likely begin in a fast-track court. In all likelihood, the trial will end in a conviction and in a matter of a few months but will that bring closure?
The judicial rigmarole will take over. The case will drag on in courts, one after the other, appeal, challenge, mercy etc.
Meanwhile, the anger subsided, people will move on. Some other toddler or girl or woman will face beats in men’s garb in some other part of the country. Like Kathua, like Unnao, like Aligarh. There will be more candle-lights, more protests, more anger, but no closure.
A new law has made capital punishment as the maximum punishment for men convicted of raping girls below 12 years. In Madhya Pradesh last year, a record number of 22 capital punishments were awarded, 20 of them were for rapes. In February, trial in a case of rape with a four-month-old in Indore was complete in a record 23 days.
The trial courts are fast with sentencing in cases of sexual crimes, especially those against children, but the execution is a long process. In seven years, Nirbhaya’s rapists and killers haven’t been put on the gallows. As a matter of fact, in last 14 years, only four executions have happened, and only one of them was for rape.
At this slow pace of closure, how do we expect the capital punishment to be a deterrent for sexual crimes against women in general and children in particular? Before public anger subsides, the trial courts have sentenced the rapists to death by hanging but are they hanged? It may take them more than 10 years before they go to the gallows.
Like we have fast-tracked trials, shouldn’t execution also be fast-tracked? Only then there can be fear among people who make children target of their depraved mentalities. The judicial processes are long drawn. In some cases, the accused roam free on bail even as trials take ages to complete. And then there are appeals and challenges to conviction.
It is time that people, when they hit streets for protests over barbaric acts such as the Tappal case, they should demand a faster closure to the case ending in hanging. Only then we may think of making capital punishment a deterrent against crimes against children.
