Only stringent punishment not enough: Speaker on rising rapes

On a day President Ram Nath Kovind promulgated an ordinance proposing stringent punishment, including death penalty, to those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said only strict punishment would not result in curbing such crimes.

While expressing the need to find out causes behind rise in such incidents, the Speaker pointed out "encontinued disintegration" of families as a reason for these crimes.

"A tough law was talked about after the occurrence of such incidents (of rape). We will also give (the convicts) capital punishment. But I wanted to say you all that only punishment will not be enough. We need to think why is this happening?" said the Speaker at a function organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Kirar Dhakad Mahasabha (ABKDM) at BHEL Dussehra Maidan here this afternoon.

 

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's wife Sadhna Singh is the national president of the ABKDM, an organisation that represents Kirars, an OBC caste.

Mahajan said the rise in crimes against girls and women would lead people to lose their faith in humanity. "If this (such incidents) continues then a rift would widen among people and they will gradually lose their faith in humanity. This would be a terrible situation," she said.

Mahajan said people used to live together as a family earlier and are still living the same way in Madhya Pradesh to a large extent.

"People used to trust each other. However, continuous disintegration (of families) is resulting in rise in such incidents (crimes against girls and women)," she said.

Mahajan, who represents the Indore Lok Sabha seat, said that in a scenario of lack of trust, people would fear to leave their children with others, and "such feelings would not be good for the society".

"When we were young, we can move around freely. Everybody knew each other and there was a sense of unity in the society, but the situation has changed now," she said.

Recently, a six-month-old girl was allegedly raped and killed in Indore by a 21-year-old man.

Also, a groundswell of anger swept across the country against the alleged rape and killing of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir and alleged rape of a teenage girl by an MLA in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao.