The Union Cabinet is likely to consider an Ordinance to award the death penalty to those convicted of raping a child up to 12 years of age. The proposal has come in the backdrop of nationwide outrage over the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua in Jammu & Kashmir, and sexual assault of a teenager in Unnao in Uttar Pradesh. The Madhya Pradesh Government was the first to bring a Bill to award capital punishment to those convicted of raping girls aged 12 and below last year. The Rajasthan Government was the second State to pass such Bill.
Sources in the Women and Child Development Ministry said against the backdrop of outrage over the incidents of rape of minors in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao and Jammu & Kashmir’s Kathua, the Government plans to bring the Ordinance to amend the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. “An Ordinance is the best way to deal with the issue. An amendment Bill will have to wait (till July) when the Monsoon Session commences,” said officials of WCD Ministry. Under the current law, the maximum punishment for “aggravated assault” is life in jail. The minimum sentence prescribed is seven years in jail.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data for 2016, incidents of rape of children have increased by over 82 per cent compared to 2015. It is for the first time that such a sharp increase in sexual assaults on children has been registered. The highest rise has been registered in Uttar Pradesh, where figures have trebled. The NCRB data shows that while in 2015, 10,854 cases of rape under Section 376 of the IPC and under Sections 4 and 6 of the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences (POCSO) were registered across the country, 2016 saw 19,765 such cases being registered.
Earlier, the Centre told the Supreme Court that it has started the process to introduce the death penalty for those convicted of raping girls below 12 years of age. The Government said it would soon propose suitable amendments to the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. The WCD Ministry made the remarks in response to a petition filed by lawyer Alakh Alok Srivastava, who had sought the death penalty for child rapists.
After the Kathua rape incident, WCD Minister Maneka Gandhi had said her Ministry would move a Cabinet note on Monday to amend POCSO Act asking for the death penalty for rape on children below 12 years.
Reacting on the rape incidents in london, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said, “We always ask our daughters about what they are doing, where they are going. We must ask our sons too.” The person who is committing these crimes is also someone’s son, he said, adding that rape of a daughter is a matter of shame for the country. last week, Modi had stated that no criminal will be spared and daughters will get justice. He had said such incidents shake our sensibilities.
After the Nirbhaya case in December 2012, when the criminal laws were amended, a provision of death penalty in case the woman either dies or is left in a “vegetative state” after rape was introduced through an Ordinance which later became the Criminal law Amendment Act.
The assertion of the Centre assumes significance following the public outcry for award of death penalty to such sexual offenders, including the assaulters of an eight-year-old girl who was gangraped and killed at Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir recently. A similar incident has been reported in Surat. Police had found the body of a nine-year-old near a cricket field in Bhestan with over 80 injuries, including some on her private parts. Post-mortem has revealed she was raped for at least eight days before being strangled.