Indian PM backs death penalty for child rapists
The Indian government yesterday approved the death penalty for child rapists after nationwide protests over the gang rape and murder of an eightyear-old girl and a series of other sexual assaults.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called a cabinet meeting to pass the measure on his return from the Commonwealth summit in Britain, a government official said.
Protests have erupted across India in past weeks over the rape and killing of a young Muslim girl by a group of Hindu men in Jammu and Kashmir state, increasing pressure on Mr Modi to take action.
The attack caused a similar reaction to the gang rape of a Delhi student on a bus in 2012.
The cabinet approved the ordinance amending laws on sexual violence to allow for capital punishment for those convicted of raping children below the age of 12, the official said.
Minimum jail sentences for convicted rapists were also toughened.
“The ordinance will be sent to the president for his consent,” the official said. Presidential approval is seen as a formality.
The new decree requires trials involving child victims to be completed within two months of an arrest, speedy for India where the wheels of justice turn slowly.
The order will remain in effect for six months from the president’s approval, or until parliament votes the changes into law.
In recent months, four Indian states have introduced similar local laws to approve the death penalty for child rapists.
India has the death penalty for the most heinous murders and terrorist attacks. But the sentences are rarely carried out and are often struck down on appeal by higher courts.
India carried out its last hanging in 2015, that of a 1993 Mumbai bombing convict.
The recent protests began after police accused eight Hindu men of raping a Muslim girl in an attempt to force her nomad community out of a Hindu-dominated area of Jammu and Kashmir.
Public anger boiled over after police last week made public how the girl was drugged and repeatedly raped while held captive for five days at a Hindu temple and then beaten to death.
India introduced tougher laws in 2013 after the New Delhi gang rape. But sexual violence, including against children, remains unabated in India, with about 11,000 child-rape cases reported in 2015. A 2014 UN report said one in three rape victims in India was a minor.
Yesterday, police in central Madhya Pradesh state arrested a man in connection with the rape and murder of a fourmonth-old girl.
The infant’s body was found on Friday in a building in Indore city.
Police said the suspect was a distant relative of the victim and had targeted the child after an argument with her mother.
Campaigners say lax implementation of laws and snailpaced trials fuel the “rape culture” in India, with many accusing police of being lax in cases involving influential people.
Mr Modi’s government faced criticism after a member of his Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh state was accused of rape by a teenager. The politician remained free for almost a year after police rejected the victim’s pleas to file a rape case against the legislator.
He was arrested last week after the teenager tried to set herself on fire outside the home of the state chief minister.
Her father this month died in hospital after being assaulted by the accused legislator’s brother. Both men were arrested.
Legislation in 2013 seems to have had no effect on the incidence of assaults against children