India closing sex crime loophole
Indian politicians on sex charges face suspension as anger grows over a gang rape in Delhi, writes Robin Pagnamenta.
India’s Supreme Court is to decide whether to suspend politicians facing charges of rape and sexual assault, as police prepare to press formal charges against six men accused of gang-raping and murdering a young woman on a bus in Delhi.
As thousands of people gathered at Delhi’s national memorial to Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi to call for tough new laws to protect women, Chief Justice Altamas Kabir said he had agreed to consider a petition asking the Supreme Court to suspend all politicians from national and state parliaments if they are facing charges of sexual violence.
About 260 men accused of such crimes have been permitted to stand in Indian elections over the past five years – including more than 30 charged with rape.
Six serving members of India’s state legislatures are facing rape prosecutions, and two national MPs are facing charges of other sexual crimes against women, according to Jagdeep S Chhokar of the Association for Democratic Reforms, which tracks the criminal records of political candidates.
Pinky Anand, a feminist and Supreme Court lawyer, welcomed the move.
‘‘It makes a lot of sense to disqualify these people,’’ she said. ‘‘If you have the country’s own leadership under this kind of shadow, then how can you expect them to protect ordinary people?’’
Until recently, there was no law in India to prevent convicted criminals, including rapists, contesting elections. This has been changed so that they cannot stand if they have been convicted, but there is nothing to stop them standing with a case pending.
This is a serious loophole in an overburdened legal system that has 32 million cases pending, which will take 320 years to clear.
The prospect of a suspension law is the latest sign of growing revulsion against entrenched misogyny in the world’s largest democracy. Ms Anand said the growing strength of the movement held the promise of ‘‘radical change’’ for the treatment of women in India.
Yesterday, lawyers at the Siaket district court in south Delhi, where the rape and murder case was due to begin in a special fast-track hearing, said they had refused to defend those accused of the young woman’s rape and murder.
‘‘We have decided that no lawyer will stand up to defend the rape accused, as it would be immoral,’’ said Sanjay Kumar, a lawyer and member of the Saket District Bar Council.
The refusal of the court’s 2500 lawyers to participate in the hearing will force the government to appoint a lawyer for the men, five of whom could face the death penalty if convicted. The youngest, who claims to be 17, is awaiting the results of a bone test to verify his age.
Horrifying new details have emerged about the savage attack on a bus on December 16, which left the 23-year-old medical student with grievous internal injuries, including the destruction of her intestines.
According to reports citing a police account of the incident, after dumping the battered woman’s body and her boyfriend off the bus, they tried to use the bus to run the woman over.
The boyfriend, who was also badly injured in the attack, managed to push her out of the way just in time, according to the account.
Fresh evidence showing that the woman fought back by biting her attackers as they took turns to rape her and assault her with an iron bar are set out in a charge sheet that runs to 1000 pages.
Bite marks found on the men and blood, semen and hair samples found on the bus, as well as the testimony of the boyfriend, and of the woman before she died, are expected to form the basis of the prosecution case against the gang.
The woman’s family have indicated that they would be prepared to disclose her name if a new anti-rape law being drafted by the government was framed in her name.
‘‘We have no objection to revealing her name,’’ the victim’s brother told IANS, the Indian news wire service, speaking by phone from his home village of Ballia.
‘‘If it is announced that the new law is being framed in her name, then we have no problem.’’
It is illegal to disclose the identity of rape victims in India, under a Supreme Court ruling to protect their families from the stigma attached to the crime.