Stringent laws, proactive cops, but sexual assault count is up

December 16, 2012 shook India’s collective conscience. Shocked by the brutal gangrape of a Delhi student returning home from a movie, the nation reacted with outrage, forcing the Congress-led UPA government to review laws around sexual assault.

For the first time in criminal law history, statutes were revisited within months and definition of sexual assault enhanced to include penetration with objects and penetration beyond peno-vaginal. Equally, the continuum of sexual crimes was recognised and stalking and voyeurism explicitly defined as offences. 

The decade ended on a bitter note of a Telangana girl being gangraped and burned to death by her perpetrators, who were later eliminated by the police in “an encounter”.

In the absence of timely justice (convicts of the 2012 Delhi gangrape are yet to hang despite being awarded death penalty), perpetrators unleashed sexual violence with impunity, minor victims of Kathua and Unnao rapes being cases in point.

Despite the 2013 Criminal Law Amendments that enhanced punishments for sexual assault, mandated time-bound inquiries and provided jail term for cops who refused to register rape cases, the bygone decade saw the disturbing trend of rising sexual crimes even against children.

As the case load mounted, the BJP-led NDA passed amendments to prescribe death penalty for child rapists.

Severity of laws notwithstanding, the country continued to grapple with the rising burden of brutal sexual crimes. Recent trends show perpetrators putting victims to death in order to destroy evidence.

Research is on to see if provisions of death penalty are triggering fresh waves of violence against women and children, with criminals not only gangraping but also eliminating them to wipe out proof. Could death penalty be triggering the trend of sexual crime victims being killed and torched? Would chemical castration be better? India continues to debate.

— Aditi Tandon