6-year after Nirbhaya, 3-yr-old girl raped

Ananya Panda
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 16

A three-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a 40-year-old man in West Delhi’s Bindapur on Sunday, said Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) Swati Maliwal, exactly on a day — when a horrific gangrape in the national capital shook the nation’s conscience in 2012 forcing India to put in place Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013.

The child was rushed to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital in a critical condition and is currently undergoing a surgery. Her parents are daily-wage earners.

“She is bleeding profusely and is very critical. How can this city let down Nirbhaya that even on her 6th death anniversary children are raped!” tweeted Maliwal tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Maliwal said neighbours caught him and beat him up severely and handed him over to the police.

Earlier in the day, the DCW chief also appealed to Modi through a letter to immediately set up high-level committees in each state with chief minister, chief justices of the High Courts, police commissioners and women commission chairpersons as members, to look into the implementation of the death penalty law in their states.

Nirbhaya rape crisis centres still to be functional; justice still eludes, says Nirbaya's mother

Post the landmark anti-rape legislation, a slew of steps, announced and assured by the governments thereafter, including Nirbhaya Rape Crisis Centres and Nirbhaya Fund, are far from being implemented.

"Justice continues to elude Nirbhaya," said Asha Devi, the mother of the 23-year-old December 16 gang rape victim. The fact the culprits are still alive points at “failure of the country’s law and order system”, she lamented.

The same sentiment was echoed by Maliwal, who blamed India’s legal system and its “laxity” in handling rapes that has allowed sexual predators to further perpetuate crime with little fear of law.

In a letter to Modi, Maliwal raised the issues of stepping up of police resources and their accountability and expressed disappointment that despite assurances the long-pending demands of expansion of Delhi Police force by 66,000 personnel and fast track courts are yet to be increased in the country resulting in poor implementation of the death penalty law.

“Today six years post the incident, I say this with pain in my heart, that the situation of women's safety in India is more or less the same. It is shameful that till today, Nirbhaya has not received justice and thousands of lives like hers are awaiting justice while many more living the horrors of their life every day,” she wrote.

Despite stringent laws now in place that mandate sexual offences be tried in fast-track courts, nothing has changed with Delhi alone witnessing over six rapes daily, Maliwal added.