Maintaining that crimes against women like rape are unacceptable, the government on Friday said they need to be curbed with an iron hand.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said the role of the law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system have come in for critical comment after the December 16 brutal gang-rape and assault here of a 23-year-old woman, who died in a Singapore hospital last week.
“These kinds of incidents and rage against women and weaker sections of our society are unacceptable to our democracy. These need to be curbed with an iron hand,” he said, addressing a conference of country’s top bureaucrats and the police brass convened in the wake of the Delhi gang-rape incident.
Mr. Shinde said even after 65 years of country’s independence, crimes against women and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have not declined despite having various legislations to check criminals.
“We need a reappraisal of the entire system, the role of all our stakeholders, the adequacy of our laws, the effectiveness of enforcement at the cutting edge level, the need for increased awareness and sensitivity starting at the school level and covering all people residing at the margins of our society,” he said.
The Home Minister said it was apparent that legislations were only one part of the solution but the principal difficulty lies at the implementation level where sometimes the ground realities become a barrier for effective implementation of the law.
“Prompt action against all offenders of crime will alone bring about respect of law. Our primary objective is to identify such barriers, suggest modifications required in our law and in the procedures and methodology of investigation, so that the trial concluded early and the guilty punished in a time-bound manner,” he said.
Keywords: crimes against women, Sushikumar Shinde, Delhi gang rape victim, gang rape victim, investigtion methodology, law enforcement agencies
Not that I'm against substantial penalties accompanying crimes of
extreme cruelty to another, but it would be unwise to believe that
you can punish this out of society. Especially, if this is an
ingrained cultural problem, as it seems to be. A solution to the
issue, rather than individual crimes, starts deep in education and
cultural change. In other words, you need to stop treating little
boys and little girls differently in terms of deference. Gender
roles which contain elements of superiority for males over females,
need to be changed. The boys need to not have privileges that girls
don't have. Yes, even sacred religious beliefs. Preference for one
sex over the other leads to ingrained feelings of superiority of one
gender over another. Real solutions to complex problems take
community effort and community sacrifice - most importantly, how the
community raises children. Is India ready for this type of change?
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