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Death for child rape: 'Good step, but every rapist should be hanged,' says Nirbhaya's mother

The Centre on Saturday approved the ordinance to award death sentence to the rapists of children below the age of 12.

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Delhi gang-rape victim, Nirbhaya's mother, Asha Devi
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Asha Devi, the mother of Nirbhaya who was gang-raped and murdered in December 2012, believes that death penalty for those who rape children under 12 years is a step in the right direction. But, she has demanded that every rapist should be given the same punishment. " It is a good step, but what about ones who are older? There is no more heinous crime than rape, there is no larger pain. Every rapist should be hanged," Asha Devi was quoted as saying by ANI.

The Centre on Saturday approved the ordinance to award death sentence to the rapists of children below the age of 12.

Following a meeting of the Union Cabinet in New Delhi, the government cleared the amendment in the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Not everyone is welcoming Saturday's Ordinance, with a section of public dubbing it as a knee-jerk reaction to quell the nationwide outrage against the perpetrators of an eight-year-old girl raped and murdered in Jammu & Kashmir's Kathua.

"This is a politically calculated move in an election year. Time and again, research has shown that harsh penal measures have only increased instances of the offence, as opposed to acting as a deterrent," Bharti Ali said.

Ali, the co-founder and co-director of Haq – Centre for Child Rights, is against the death penalty and believes that the real emergency is to address the non-compliance of existing policies.

Interestingly, after the December 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape case, the Justice JS Verma committee, which was looking at amending relevant provisions in the IPC, had opposed the death penalty even in the rarest of rare cases. However, in 2013, the State amended the provisions of Section 376 of the IPC and introduced the death penalty as the maximum punishment, especially for gang-rape.

The committee had rejected a proposal for chemical castration, citing that it wouldn't treat the social foundations of rape. Observing that the death penalty should not be awarded for the offence of rape, as there was considerable evidence that it didn't act as deterrent to other serious crimes, it had recommended life imprisonment instead.

What's more, in October 27, India had voted against the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution on the "question of the death penalty."

India was one of the 13 nations who had voted against. The UNHCR resolution called upon the UN secretary general to dedicate the 2019 supplement to his quinquennial report on capital punishment to the consequences arising at various stages of the imposition and application of the death penalty on the enjoyment of the human rights of persons facing the death penalty.

(With agency inputs)

 

 

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