Bharat Rakshak

In a 13-point plan, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Tuesday mooted severe punishments like death penalty and chemical castration for sexual offenders through amendments in Central Acts.

IGs would submit a report in 15 days on the number of cases of sexual crime under investigation and pending in courts to the Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order).

The project deadline is January 10. Details of molesters and those convicted in sexual harassment cases, dowry deaths and domestic violence would also figure on the website of the bureau. Present status of cases and criminals like whether they are in jail or missing would also be mentioned. The bureau would ensure the identities of victims are hidden.

The Centre also asked all the states and union territories (UTs) to suspend police personnel if s/he fails to register a complaint, reminding them that "not registering any complaint is violation of law".

Anand Grover of the Lawyers’ Initiative, which worked on the Criminal Law Amendment Bill 2012 to amend the IPC, the CrPC and the Evidence Act in sexual assault cases, says, “An FIR must be registered immediately. A police officer must be suspended for not doing so. We want community review of police investigations into sex offences. There have to community panels right up to the block level to track investigations independently and see that the police is doing its job. This must be part of the statute.”

MUMBAI: The 16-year-old schoolboy who last week savagely knifed a 28-year-old woman and slit her two-year-old son's throat in Belapur has been released on bail, said police officers.

The attack victim, Smita Singh, is still in the ICU of MGM Hospital in Belapur CBD, while the son has been shifted to general ward, said Smita's husband Kuldeep. He has sought protection for his family from NRI police, following "threatening gestures" by the mother of the accused juvenile.

MurthyB wrote:There is a huge class difference in India. The rapists are slum dwellers. The couple were coming out of an upscale mall having watched "life of Pi', which even in the US is a movie of high culture. .

Theo_Fidel wrote:They most definitely came from two different world views. Within that definition they most definitely were from 2 different classes. The conflict in India is now between these two world views. The situation is fluid but the 'arc of history' bends towards Jyothi not towards the status quo.

The Police Department has no wherewithal to provide unarmed combative training to all women in the State but a person can kill the attacker if she or he feels a threat to life, said DGP V. Dinesh Reddy on Monday. He was replying to a question posed by a woman employee as to what she can do if someone attacks her, at an interactive session with IT sector employees organised by the Cyberabad police. “Self defence is a right,” he said explaining that the law had that provision.

Parivartan made a promising start, using pantomimes and workshops to create awareness in schools, localities and police stations, sending women cops to patrol neighbourhoods and encouraging women to form a monitoring system in their locality. The cop who started Parivartan, Sagar Preet Hooda, says the number of rape cases in the districts covered by the programme fell every year between 2006 and 2010.

There is a notion, says Hooda, that rape, like murder, cannot be prevented. "That is not correct," he adds. "Rape is a learnt behaviour. It can be unlearnt. Parivartan was built on this belief that rape can be unlearnt."

Uma Devi, a collective coordinator, who is part of Delhi government's Awaz Uthao project, said, "We hold regular meetings with women and found that most of them face harassment of some kind while they go to school, work or even to the market. We decided to write down those experiences and paste them on walls, so that men who are generally found sitting or chatting there will think twice before harassing any woman."

This 'wall magazine' was put up in Bawana last month and following the gang rape incident, the Delhi government's social welfare department had asked all women collectives to put up such walls in every area.

harbans wrote:< snip>. Maybe hiring female cops is part of the solution they have come up with. Yet even hiring women does not take away the need for training sessions on sensitivity for both male and female police.
<snip>.

harbans wrote:<snip> So for low level lewdness, molestation we can be flexible not to treat even till a 19 year old as an adult, yet for any violent crime and assault, we treat even a 15 year old as an adult. Repeat offenses must be made clear will result in naming and shaming. Compounding of punishments. Focus s on the 15-19 year age groups must be sustained. Measures to keep focus need to be tabled. Things like respectful interaction at school and not segregation encouraged in all schools for example under watch.
<snip>.

ramana wrote:Lilo, How does your data compare with this map from IBN?

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/rape-map-of- ... 62-53.html

Theo_Fidel wrote:Ramana, I know what you are trying to do and I will not play this game.
Don't politic with this issue or you will find it going the AH way.... ..same applies to LILO... ..wise to keep all of India on your side.

The police catch these road romeos making lewd remarks or groping-- make them do sit ups etc in public and shame them.

School buses will be allowed to ply in Delhi only after police verification and all discotheques have been ordered to close by 1am by the Government in a bid to beef up security in the capital.

harbans wrote:HT:

School buses will be allowed to ply in Delhi only after police verification and all discotheques have been ordered to close by 1am by the Government in a bid to beef up security in the capital.

From a clueless babudom set up, i had previously anticipated increased segregation and measures that will increase regression in society. Why not close clubs at 9 pm? The last thing India also needs are men whose only chance to talk and approach a woman is his neighbors kids or extended or immediate family. The GoI has to understand it's a fundamental right for people to be able to spend time after hours responsibly. The cops don't want extra work. They are paid by people to help keep peace. I can suggest the best possible way to increase safety..impose curfew. After 6 pm license only those that are required to work. Keep a licensed army to ferry home food from restaurants that will be open till 9pM. Very little cops will be required. No women will come out. All rape will be confined within homes and neighborhoods. While we tackle ways to solve the problem, we must also fight the state that will attempt to take away fundamental freedoms and rights from people.

School buses will be allowed to ply in Delhi only after police verification and all discotheques have been ordered to close by 1am by the Government in a bid to beef up security in the capital.

Consent has to be demonstrated by the Accused once the fact of penetration is established.

darshhan wrote: This is what I earlier said. India and in particular Delhi is well on its way to becoming a Police state. Ofcourse it is another thing that crime rate will still be high. 'cause cops are more interested in using the laws and regulations to generate cash. The cure is much worse than disease.

But still people think that answer to rising crime is more cops and more regulations. I just pray to god that they get what they wish for and get all the experience living in a Police state.

On @face_the_nation #agendaforchange. Jamaat opposes co-education. But are co -ed schools essential to promote gender equality.

lakshmikanth wrote:More retarded nandi-dropping from Sagarika Ghose:

https://twitter.com/sagarikaghose/statu ... 4851495936

On @face_the_nation #agendaforchange. Jamaat opposes co-education. But are co -ed schools essential to promote gender equality.

Police passes over the responsibility of protecting girls herself and to the parents, why dont you give them your guns and also your salary.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/w ... epage=true

While the Chief Justice of India inaugurated a Fast Track Court (FTC) at Delhi and exhorted the High Courts to act likewise, a Bench of the Supreme Court, in Brij Mohan Lal vs Union of India and Others, 2005, allowed the Central and State governments to close down over 1,500 FTCs on the ground that funds were not available.

The winding up of these courts despite their fair performance and the huge arrears that needed to be tackled was justified by the central government on the incredible argument that the 13th Finance Commission had recommended a grant of Rs.5,000 crore for improving the justice delivery system and that out of this Rs.2500 crore was to be spent on courts working in shifts, Lok Adalats, the Legal Services Authorities, Alternate Disputes Resolution and the judicial academies for trainings. Thus due to the shift in perspective, money could no longer be spent on FTCs.

The mere fact that the FTCs have been discontinued should not deter the Chief Justice of India from reviewing this judgment on a Constitutional Bench and directing the Central and State governments to increase the budgets for the judiciary five times and appoint thousands of judges and establish thousands of courts. The judiciary has for many years taken the blame for delay in the dispensation of justice and the arrears in the courts. The time has come for the blame to be placed correctly — at the door of the Prime Minister of India.

But not all of southern India was like that. When I moved to Chennai, in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the city presented me with a pleasant surprise. Aside from the occasional staring, which now I know is a part of the Indian reality for women, men were remarkably well-behaved in Chennai when compared with those in Kerala.

After graduating from a college in Chennai, I went on to live in Hyderabad in the state of Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai in Maharashtra and Bangalore in Karnataka for study and work. Living alone in these metro cities all over India cemented my belief that Chennai was indeed the best and the safest to be a single woman.

"Girls under the age of 18 years, who are forced to work in brothels, at present, are rescued and rehabilitated under the Juvenile Justice Act, but once the age is reduced to 16, police will arrest them and charge them with prostitution for no fault of theirs," Gupta told IANS.

"The reduction of age would certainly help the police as homeless juveniles are easy targets for them and can be easily implicated in false cases," he added.

According to the lawyers and activists, the government urgently needs to uniformly define a juvenile and an adult.

"Different laws have different definitions of adult; a person can have consensual sex at 16 but can marry only at 18 and consume alcohol only when he/she turns 25. we should not rush into a decision under pressure," Ranjana Kumari, Director of Centre for Social Research, told IANS.

"... even if you reduce the age to 16 and then a 15 year-old commits a similar crime, would you again reduce the age to 14?" she asked.

So, should such juveniles who commit heinous crimes be let off just because of their age? The group's opinions were divided.

Ranjana Kumari said that the punishment should be given according to the severity of the crime and not the age.

"In an exceptional case like the Delhi gang-rape, the juvenile may be given harsh punishment," she said.

Agreed lawyer H.S. Phoolka, who said that if a juvenile between the age of 16 to 18 years commits a heinous crime, the court can award a severe sentence irrespective of the age.

But as the debate cotinues, a public suit was filed in the Delhi High Court Wednesday on lowering the age of a juvenile.

Taking note of the petition, the Delhi High Court issued notice to the central government seeking to exclude from the purview of the Juvenile Justice Act those above 16 years committing serious crimes like rape and murder.

A division bench consisting of Chief Justice D. Murugesan and Justice V.K. Jain issued the notice through the ministries of parliamentary affairs and law and justice, and asked them to file their response by Feb 14.

Advocate R.K. Kapoor, who had filed the petion, said if juveniles above 16 years were involved in "heinous crime" like rape and murder, they should not be treated as juveniles and be given harsher punishment like adults.

Her favorite slogan from the protest, she recalled, was “No silence about violence.”

“It was as if my built-up anger and frustration at suffering sexual harassment silently over the years just boiled over,” Shukla said. “But after all the outpouring of anger in Delhi, the men have not improved, even now.”

As she reaches her women-only college, she points to a police jeep.

“Some of these policemen stare at the students all day,” she said. “It made us uncomfortable. So the college principal had to request the police to park farther away from the gate.”

While the panel will also give its full report in a few weeks from now, it wants to give an interim-report. "The panel wants to give interim report concerning the issue of women's safety in Delhi and other cities," Kumar told reporters here

Punjab & Haryana High Court Chief Justice A. K. Sikri on Friday issued directions to all courts in Punjab and Haryana as well as the Union Territory of Chandigarh to ensure day-to-day proceedings in cases of heinous crimes against women. According to a spokesman of the High Court, Justice Sikri had ordered that at least eight courts in Punjab and 11 in Haryana would be designated as “fast track courts” for trials in such cases. The High Court has also written to all District and Sessions Courts within its jurisdiction to organise meetings of different stakeholders including judicial officers, public prosecutors, police and representatives from the Bar to sensitise them about gravity of such cases where justice has to be speeded up.

A Bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra made this observation while issuing notice on Friday to the Centre and the National Commission for Women on a public interest litigation petition seeking a direction to them to establish a Criminal Injuries Compensation Board

The Election Commission on Friday sought that convicted persons as well as those against whom charges of heinous crime have been framed by a court of law be immediately debarred from contesting elections. The EC call comes a day after the Supreme Court questioned the preferential treatment accorded to convicted MPs and MLAs as against an ordinary citizen held guilty on a similar count. We want it immediately, chief election commissioner VS Sampath said when asked whether the EC would like the new norms for curbing criminalization of politics to be enforced ahead of the next general elections.......
The proposals for de-criminalization of politics were reiterated by the EC in November 1999, July 2004 and October 2006 but electoral reforms have not yet come about.