In a verdict that exposed the inadequacies in the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of 0f Children Act), 2000, the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) here on Tuesday convicted two juveniles arrested in connection with the much-discussed Shakti Mills gang-rapes of a photojournalist and a telephone operator and sent them to a Nashik school for three years for rehabilitation and reformation.
Holding them guilty of offences registered against under 376 (d) (rape by one or more persons with common intention), 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and other Section of Indian Penal Code, the JJB — comprising Principal Magistrate GB Jadhav and member Mary Shettiyar — sent the two juveniles “in conflict with law” to a special home at Nashik to undergo rehabilitation and reformative programme.
“The board has sent the two convicted juveniles to reformation home at Nashik. During the course of next three undergo rehabilitation and reformation under the supervision of a probation officer,” Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told The Pioneer here in the evening.Nikam opined that but for the loopholes in the juvenile justice law, the two juveniles who committed as heinous crime as gang-rape and that too in a premeditated manner deserved very harsh punishment.
“The Juvenile Justice Act needs to be amended forthwith so as to ensure that juveniles above 16 years of age are meted out harsh treatment along the lines of adults in the event of their having been found guilty of heinous crimes murder, gang-rapes and terror acts in full knowledge of the gravity of crimes committed by them. The loopholes in the Act have come in handy for outfits like leT lashkar-e-Taiba (leT) to rope in juveniles to commit terror acts in India,” Nikam said.
Currently, the JJB — under Section 15 (g) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of 0f Children Act) — is empowered to send a juvenile in conflict with law to a special home for undergoing rehabilitation and reformation under the supervision of a probation officer for a period not exceeding three year. The punishment meted out to the juvenile in conflict concerned is not withstanding the punishment stipulated “in any other law for the time, in force”.
The Mumbai-based JJB’s ruling comes on the heels of the Minister for Women & Child Development Maneka Gandhi proposing radical changes in the Juvenile Justice Act – in the form of more harsh punishment than the current maximum three years of placement in a special home for juveniles above 16 years found guilty of serious crimes like murder and rape, and the Supreme Court also rooting for a more stringent provisions under the Juvenile Justice Act, The two convicted juveniles were among the seven persons named as accused in the two rapes at Shakti Mills that took place on July 31 and August 22, 2013. While one of them was convicted in the July 31 telephone operator gang-rape case, the other was found guilty in the photojournalist gang-rape case.
While the August 22 incident came to light first, the details of the first incident that took place on July 31 came out subsequently.The photojournalist, working for a Mumbai magazine, was gang-raped on the evening of August 22 by five men in the defunct Shakti Mills compound at Mahalaxmi in south-central Mumbai, where she had gone along with her male colleague to take pictures for a magazine story.
In the July 31 incident, the rape survivor – who works as a telephone operator with a private firm at Bhandup and lives at Mulund in north-east Mumbai – was gang raped in a similar manner in the Shakti Mills area.