SHAME for Nation: Barbaric act of brutal rape of a toddler in Capital

It’s been again most shameful for our country to witness this barbaric act of the brutal rape of a five-year-old girl in the Capital of India. Where are we heading for?

This brutalization shows that immediate corrective measures need to be taken.  Let society and law not blame each other, it’s time to give instant stringent punishment to the rapist and the criminal should not be spared. Rather the society needs to look deep within and work to root out the evil of rape from our midst enabling to build a safe country for girls. The rapist who so ever if found guilty of the crime, should not be let to any sort of “protectionism” in the legal system where they can take the benefit of loopholes in rape laws. But the worst has been shown by the police personnel by offering money to the girl’s family to cover up the issue instead of immediately registering the complaint and search for the little girl and inspite of police  receiving recently training on how to respond to cases involving women and the importance of promptly registering complaints. 

Today the public anger is justified on the roads of our capital against Delhi police for their mild concern towards this case when being reported by the girl's parents. It’s the need of hour for our law making agencies to enact the most stringent punishment to the culprits involved in this heinous and inhuman crime. Moreover as seeing the new anti-rape legislation: Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013 which government amended anti-rape laws that it introduced through an ordinance and conglomerate of changes, which introduced the death penalty for extreme rape cases, has to be cleared by parliament within six months.

Hence in this bestial act case the accused must be hanged, rather the section – 376 of Indian Penal Code having minimum punishment is minimum 7 – 10 years or a life term, this particular case should be dealt atleast with Death Penalty, as this will be the only substitute for the unscrupulous elements who commit such ruthless acts, as the offenders this way cannot frequently be dismissed and they will have fear of punishment and think twice before committing such ruthless crime – ‘Rape’.

Even it is the dire need for country to make vast improvements for the security, safety and status of women.  This gruesome assault on a toddler should be a lesson for us to work collectively to root out this sort of depravity from our society.   

(The author is Harpreet Sandhu, Practicing Criminal Lawyer and Former Additional Advocate General Punjab.)