BJP reiterates demand for special session

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday reiterated its demand for convening a special session of Parliament to strengthen laws against rape and sexual attacks on women.

“The time has come to call a special session of Parliament, or at least during the Budget session we should take steps to make laws against sexual harassment more stringent,” Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said at a memorial meeting for the 23-year-old Delhi gang rape victim here. The condolence meeting was organised by the Delhi unit of the party.

“In 2013, if we can take such measures, then we will be able to say that the victim’s sacrifice did not go in vain. She died, but she was able to save thousands of girls in the country,” she said.

The senior BJP leader said she had spoken to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and demanded that a special session of Parliament be called to examine the existing laws regarding rape as there was no scope for giving death penalty in such cases.

“We feel that if a murder takes place after kidnap and rape, then death penalty should be the only punishment. But my demand for a special session was rejected by the Home Minister. Then we demanded an all-party meeting to discuss the security of women but that was also rejected,’’ she said.

“Don’t allow mercy petition”

Attacking the UPA government for the hush-hush way in which the December 16 gang rape victim was cremated, she demanded that there should not be any provision for convicts, sentenced to death in rape-cum-murder cases, to file a mercy petition. “If this can be done, then it will be a gesture of respect to that victim,’’ she said.

She also demanded that such cases be taken up only by fast track courts and decided within six months and capital punishment given in cases of rape and murder.

“We have failed”

Pointing out that the incident was not just “cruel, barbaric or beastly,’’ Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said: “We have failed the test of civility.”

“Crimes are sometimes categorised as cruel, then brutal, then barbaric and then beastly. But in this case all these four words will fall short of describing the crime that has taken place...The parameters of a good civilisation are measured by the condition of women and the behaviour that is being meted out to them in that civilization,’’ he said.

“Time has come when lawmakers should come together to make a strong law against such crimes,’’ he noted.