Women getting raped left, right & centre: SC

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court, which expressed concern on Tuesday over incidents of rape in the country by observing that women are being raped “left, right and centre”, has asked all the print, electronic and social media not to publish or display photos of victims of sexual abuse even in blurred or morphed form in any case across the country.

The apex court also warned against interviewing minor victims of sexual abuse saying it has a severe mental impact.

It asked the Centre to apprise it on steps proposed to be taken to prevent sexual abuse of minors in shelter homes across the country.

It said that victims of child sex abuse could only be interviewed by members of National Commission For Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and State Commissions For Protection of Child Rights in the presence of counsellors.

The apex court also pulled up the Delhi Commission for Women for trying to intervene in the Bihar shelter home case and said that no politics should be involved in the matter.

Earlier in the day, a bench comprising justices M B Lokur, Deepak Gupta and K M Joseph came down heavily on the Bihar government for funding the NGO which ran the shelter home in Muzaffarpur where girls were allegedly sexually abused.

The bench, during the hearing on Tuesday morning, referred to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data and said that every six hours, a woman is raped in India.

It referred to the NCRB data and said 38,947 women were raped in India in 2016.

Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), which conducted an audit of shelter homes, told the court that out of 110 such institutions in Bihar, “grave concerns” have been raised about 15.