Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has asserted that the government will enact stringent laws to punish rapists and those involved in sexual harassment of women to prevent such terrible incidents from occurring in the State.
Reacting to the public outcry over the rape of a six-year-old girl in a Bangalore school, he told presspersons at Kazibilagi village on Sunday that the government was preparing for bringing in amendments to laws to ensure stringent punishment to the culprits. He categorically stated that there was no question of protecting the culprits involved in such heinous acts. He added that strict instructions have been given to the police to book such offenders under the Goonda Act.
He, however, said that the judiciary should also send a strong message to rapists by awarding them the strongest possible punishment.
Asserting that school managements were primarily responsible for such incidents if they happened on the school premises, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that the government would not spare such managements and their staff if they failed to protect their school children.
He said that a meeting of school managements in Bangalore had been convened on Monday where strict guidelines would be given to them to help prevent such incidents from reoccurring. Taking exception to the allegation of the BJP that law and order had completely collapsed in the State, he accused the BJP of making baseless charges against the Congress government and trying to politicise the incident to gain political mileage.
Mr. Siddaramaiah asked “what moral right has the BJP to talk now when its own Ministers and legislators had been accused of sexual misconduct in the past”.
Ministers S.R. Patil and M.B. Patil and Congress MLAs of the district were present.
