National Crime Records Bureau data, 2015: Slight dip in rape, crime against women

Report from  Indian Express

But some crimes increased as compared to 2014. Child trafficking data, released for the first time, show a very high incidence in West Bengal, Assam and Bihar. DEEPTIMAN TIWARY sifts through the numbers for latest trends in crimes against the most vulnerable sections of society — women, children and Dalits.

Kidnappings spiked, mainly to ‘force her into marriage’

The year 2015 has witnessed a reduction in crime against women as compared to 2014. Recording a decrease of 3.1%, 2015 saw the registration of 3,27,394 cases under the head of Crimes against Women as compared to 3,37,922 cases in 2014, show figures from the National Crime Records Bureau.
Cases of rape have fallen by 5.7% — coming down from 36,735 in 2014 to 34,651 in 2015. Incidents of gangrape too have shown a decrease from 2,346 in 2014 to 2,113 in 2015.

There has been a marginal increase of 2.5%, however, in other sexual offences against women. Under the category of “assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty”, 2015 saw 84,222 cases being registered across the country as against 82,235 in 2014. The category includes offences such as sexual harrassment, assault or use of criminal force to women with intent to disrobe, voyeurism, and stalking.

Forcing a woman into marriage continues to be the chief reason to kidnap her. According to the data, in 2015, close to 54% of all abductions of women were carried out to force them into marriage. In 2014 too, this reason was behind over 50% of all kidnappings of women.
Police sources said such high numbers of kidnappings for marriage were probably due to the fact that parents of girls who eloped often registered cases of kidnapping against the man the girl had fled with.


Delhi has the highest rate of crimes against women overall. With 17,104 cases, the capital recorded a crime rate of 184.3 per 1 lakh female population. Assam is second with a rate of 148.2, with 23,258 cases.
However, the high rate of crime is often a reflection of police registering cases and dealing with the crime. It does not necessarily show deteriorating law and order. As this paper has reported earlier, Somalia has the lowest crime rate in the world while Sweden has the highest.

Children made up half of all human trafficking victims

More than 50% cases of human trafficking involved minors and close 90% of them were girls trafficked to be forced into prostitution in 2015.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has for the first time come out with data on trafficking of children. Earlier, data on human trafficking only revealed the number of victims without classifying them into adults and children.

WATCH VIDEO: Six Cities Most Unsafe For Women In India

According to the NCRB data for 2015, out of 6,877 cases of human trafficking in the country, 3,490 (51%) involved children. Of these 3,087 (88.5%) were cases registered under Section 366A (procuration of girl to force her into sex) of the Indian Penal Code.

Assam and West Bengal have recorded the highest number of trafficking cases both among adults and children. The two states also have a high rate (incidents per 1 lakh population) of trafficking. Sources said the high number of cases were linked to the fact that these states bordered Bangladesh. The numbers also indicated, however, that the administration had taken cognizance of the problem, and was registering cases, the sources added.

According to the NCRB data, Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and Haryana alone accounted for 85% of child trafficking cases in the country. Assam and West Bengal also had the highest rate of child trafficking at 11.1 and 3.8 respectively. In Assam, West Bengal and Bihar, trafficking of children constituted nearly 90% of all trafficking.
Sources said last year Bihar had seen an unprecedented surge in child trafficking from Nepal. This was in the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake that had devastated large parts of the Himalayan country.
The Sashastra Seema Bal, which guards the India-Nepal border, had made hundreds of arrests, and handed over the victims to state police in UP and Bihar. Most victims had narrated stories of abject poverty that had forced them to cross the border to seek a livelihood.

Assam and West Bengal also account for the highest number of overall human trafficking cases: with 1,494 and 1,255 cases respectively, they make up 40% of all human trafficking cases in the country. Other states that have reported high human trafficking figures include Tamil Nadu (577), Telangana (561) and Karnataka (507).

Crimes against children rose 5.3% over 2014

Sexual offences along with kidnapping and abduction constituted 81% of all cases of crimes against children in 2015. According to latest NCRB data, 2015 witnessed 94,172 cases of crimes against children of which 76,345 were either related to sexual offences or involved kidnapping.
The year also saw an increase of 5.3% in crimes against children as compared to 2014, when the figure was 89,423.
With 41,893 kidnapping and abduction of children, the offence constituted 44.5% of total cases of crimes against children. It was closely followed by sexual offences which numbered 34,452. Rapes had the highest share of this at 10,854 cases.
Under the stringent POCSO, 14,913 cases were registered of which 8,800 were rapes. Classification on the basis of relation sbetween accused and the victim shows that close to 95% victims knew the accused. This is in line with all rapes in general in India.
However, various states exhibited varying degrees of such acquaintance. In West Bengal there were only 80.2% cases where the victim knew the accused. In Jharkhand it was even lesser at 76.2%. Other states states which just about breached the 90s include Madhya Pradesh and Assam.
Police say it is always difficult to prevent rapes committed by family members or those known to victims.

Highest rates of crimes against Dalits in Rajasthan, Andhra

At a time when atrocities against Dalits have created a political storm and triggered a heated national debate, data from the National Crime Records Bureau shows the previous year saw a staggering 45,003 cases of crimes were reported against individuals belonging to the Scheduled Castes.
As per estimates of the Dalit population population made by the NCRB, this works out to a crime rate of 22.3 per 100,000.

Reported cases of crimes against Scheduled Tribes in 2015 were fewer than a fourth of the SC numbers — 10,914 cases countrywide, working out to a rate of 10.5 per 100,000 ST population.
Rajasthan saw the highest crime rate of 57.3 against SCs, followed by Andhra Pradesh (52.3), Bihar (38.9) and Madhya Pradesh (36.9) per 100,000 population.
Goa had a rate of 51.1 and Sikkim 38.9, but only 13 and 11 cases were reported from these states, making them statistically mostly insignificant.

Rajasthan also had one of the highest crime rates against STs, behind only Kerala. But again, Rajasthan’s rate of 34.7 was based on 3,207 cases, while in Kerala, which saw a crime against STs rate of 36.3, reported only 176 cases of crimes against STs.

Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Odisha followed, with crime rates against STs of 27.3, 21.2, 19.4 and 14.5 respectively.

National Crime Records Bureau data, 2015: Slight dip in rape, crime against women

Report from  Indian Express

But some crimes increased as compared to 2014. Child trafficking data, released for the first time, show a very high incidence in West Bengal, Assam and Bihar. DEEPTIMAN TIWARY sifts through the numbers for latest trends in crimes against the most vulnerable sections of society — women, children and Dalits.

Kidnappings spiked, mainly to ‘force her into marriage’

The year 2015 has witnessed a reduction in crime against women as compared to 2014. Recording a decrease of 3.1%, 2015 saw the registration of 3,27,394 cases under the head of Crimes against Women as compared to 3,37,922 cases in 2014, show figures from the National Crime Records Bureau.
Cases of rape have fallen by 5.7% — coming down from 36,735 in 2014 to 34,651 in 2015. Incidents of gangrape too have shown a decrease from 2,346 in 2014 to 2,113 in 2015.

There has been a marginal increase of 2.5%, however, in other sexual offences against women. Under the category of “assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty”, 2015 saw 84,222 cases being registered across the country as against 82,235 in 2014. The category includes offences such as sexual harrassment, assault or use of criminal force to women with intent to disrobe, voyeurism, and stalking.

Forcing a woman into marriage continues to be the chief reason to kidnap her. According to the data, in 2015, close to 54% of all abductions of women were carried out to force them into marriage. In 2014 too, this reason was behind over 50% of all kidnappings of women.
Police sources said such high numbers of kidnappings for marriage were probably due to the fact that parents of girls who eloped often registered cases of kidnapping against the man the girl had fled with.


Delhi has the highest rate of crimes against women overall. With 17,104 cases, the capital recorded a crime rate of 184.3 per 1 lakh female population. Assam is second with a rate of 148.2, with 23,258 cases.
However, the high rate of crime is often a reflection of police registering cases and dealing with the crime. It does not necessarily show deteriorating law and order. As this paper has reported earlier, Somalia has the lowest crime rate in the world while Sweden has the highest.

Children made up half of all human trafficking victims

More than 50% cases of human trafficking involved minors and close 90% of them were girls trafficked to be forced into prostitution in 2015.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has for the first time come out with data on trafficking of children. Earlier, data on human trafficking only revealed the number of victims without classifying them into adults and children.

WATCH VIDEO: Six Cities Most Unsafe For Women In India

According to the NCRB data for 2015, out of 6,877 cases of human trafficking in the country, 3,490 (51%) involved children. Of these 3,087 (88.5%) were cases registered under Section 366A (procuration of girl to force her into sex) of the Indian Penal Code.

Assam and West Bengal have recorded the highest number of trafficking cases both among adults and children. The two states also have a high rate (incidents per 1 lakh population) of trafficking. Sources said the high number of cases were linked to the fact that these states bordered Bangladesh. The numbers also indicated, however, that the administration had taken cognizance of the problem, and was registering cases, the sources added.

According to the NCRB data, Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and Haryana alone accounted for 85% of child trafficking cases in the country. Assam and West Bengal also had the highest rate of child trafficking at 11.1 and 3.8 respectively. In Assam, West Bengal and Bihar, trafficking of children constituted nearly 90% of all trafficking.
Sources said last year Bihar had seen an unprecedented surge in child trafficking from Nepal. This was in the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake that had devastated large parts of the Himalayan country.
The Sashastra Seema Bal, which guards the India-Nepal border, had made hundreds of arrests, and handed over the victims to state police in UP and Bihar. Most victims had narrated stories of abject poverty that had forced them to cross the border to seek a livelihood.

Assam and West Bengal also account for the highest number of overall human trafficking cases: with 1,494 and 1,255 cases respectively, they make up 40% of all human trafficking cases in the country. Other states that have reported high human trafficking figures include Tamil Nadu (577), Telangana (561) and Karnataka (507).

Crimes against children rose 5.3% over 2014

Sexual offences along with kidnapping and abduction constituted 81% of all cases of crimes against children in 2015. According to latest NCRB data, 2015 witnessed 94,172 cases of crimes against children of which 76,345 were either related to sexual offences or involved kidnapping.
The year also saw an increase of 5.3% in crimes against children as compared to 2014, when the figure was 89,423.
With 41,893 kidnapping and abduction of children, the offence constituted 44.5% of total cases of crimes against children. It was closely followed by sexual offences which numbered 34,452. Rapes had the highest share of this at 10,854 cases.
Under the stringent POCSO, 14,913 cases were registered of which 8,800 were rapes. Classification on the basis of relation sbetween accused and the victim shows that close to 95% victims knew the accused. This is in line with all rapes in general in India.
However, various states exhibited varying degrees of such acquaintance. In West Bengal there were only 80.2% cases where the victim knew the accused. In Jharkhand it was even lesser at 76.2%. Other states states which just about breached the 90s include Madhya Pradesh and Assam.
Police say it is always difficult to prevent rapes committed by family members or those known to victims.

Highest rates of crimes against Dalits in Rajasthan, Andhra

At a time when atrocities against Dalits have created a political storm and triggered a heated national debate, data from the National Crime Records Bureau shows the previous year saw a staggering 45,003 cases of crimes were reported against individuals belonging to the Scheduled Castes.
As per estimates of the Dalit population population made by the NCRB, this works out to a crime rate of 22.3 per 100,000.

Reported cases of crimes against Scheduled Tribes in 2015 were fewer than a fourth of the SC numbers — 10,914 cases countrywide, working out to a rate of 10.5 per 100,000 ST population.
Rajasthan saw the highest crime rate of 57.3 against SCs, followed by Andhra Pradesh (52.3), Bihar (38.9) and Madhya Pradesh (36.9) per 100,000 population.
Goa had a rate of 51.1 and Sikkim 38.9, but only 13 and 11 cases were reported from these states, making them statistically mostly insignificant.

Rajasthan also had one of the highest crime rates against STs, behind only Kerala. But again, Rajasthan’s rate of 34.7 was based on 3,207 cases, while in Kerala, which saw a crime against STs rate of 36.3, reported only 176 cases of crimes against STs.

Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Odisha followed, with crime rates against STs of 27.3, 21.2, 19.4 and 14.5 respectively.

Ignoring Murthal highway gang rapes is our national shame

 

The gang rapes of 10 women at Murthal near Sonepat in Haryana are the nation's shame. It's a shame for the governments of Haryana as well as the Centre. It's our collective shame. Sadly, it's national media's shame too. Why is it a shame for 24/7 media? Let's consider the facts.

One, The Tribune, Chandigarh reported the news of the alleged rape of 10 women by 30-odd men on National Highway-1 near Murthal in Haryana on February 22 (Monday). Two, The Tribune ran a headline, "Women commuters 'violated' by highway goons" on the front page as a lead. The web edition of the paper carried the story as well with same prominence aptly with a deck, "Horror of Highway."

Three, The Tribune is a credible newspaper. It's not known for sensationalism and trivialisation of news. Four, the story was credited to two of the newspaper's senior reporters who had visited Murthal, spoken to people living and working around the spot where the crime took place.

They had also spoken to the police and army officials who were on duty in the area on the night of February 22 after the violence triggered by demand for reservation by Jats.

Five, the Punjab and Haryana High Court took suo motu cognizance of the incident the same morning, February 22, after reading the newspaper. Justice Naresh Kumar Sanghi who took the cognizance said say the incident required a probe by the "premier investigating agency" of the country.

Six, the Haryana Human Rights Commission also took suo motu cognizance of the report the same day. And lastly, The Tribune reported that the Haryana Police after making preliminary inquiries termed the report as a rumour.

The facts are being recounted here for one reason. Never or seldom, if ever, one comes across high judiciary, high court, and human rights commission moving with such speed on the basis of a news report. It reinforces the credibility of the report, the seriousness of the incident and its magnitude.

The Tribune reported that in the wee hours of February 22, vehicles on the National Highway-1 at Murthal in Sonepat district of Haryana were stopped by a group of 30-odd goons. They set the vehicles on fire. The male occupants of vehicles managed to flee.

Some women, as many as 10, according to the report, who couldn't flee, were dragged out, stripped and raped. The women were found lying in the fields nearby when their male relatives returned after the goons had left. The victims and their families, the report said, were advised by the district officials not to report the matter to anyone for the sake of their "honour".

The shame of national media:

For full four days after the incident was reported, the Delhi media was sleeping. It was so pre-occupied with reporting the war over "your nationalism versus mine"; so engrossed with reported threat to freedom of speech; and so captivated with the phony war between Arnab Goswami and Barkha Dutt that it chose to shove the shame of Haryana under the carpet.

Murthal is less than 50km from Delhi. It's on the national highway linking Delhi with Chandigarh. There were tell-tale signs of molestation and "violation" of women reported by The Tribune. Torn jeans and clothes, dupatas and undergarments were strewn in the fields.

There were witnesses who had spoken to The Tribune reporters, roadside eateries' owners who had given shelters to the women fleeing from the marauders. There were villagers who were talking of circumstantial evidence pointing to molestations. There were people from villages nearby who had said that they had rushed to provide clothes to women who had been stripped and molested.

By the time the Delhi media woke up to rush, the police and goons had silenced the eyewitnesses into submission.

No less culpable are politicians who were busy scoring brownie points over each other in Parliament. For political parties, debating merits and demerits of "Ma Durga versus Mahishasur" constituted a matter of more urgent national priority than raising the issue of a mass gang rape.

Had the opposition parties raised the issue in Parliament that very day, the culprits wouldn't have the time to suppress the incident. The Haryana Police would have been under a lot more pressure to act. The Haryana police chief wouldn't be staging the charade of calling for victims of rape to come forward to report the case after four days, rather than going after the culprits.

Had television reporters rushed there on the same day to report the horror of highway as "breaking news", had the horror of Haryana been on the prime time debate on February 22, the shame of Haryana would been exposed more forcefully.

If an incident of mass rape of woman in the backyard of the national capital could remain virtually off the nation's radar for four days, one shudders to think of the plight of the people who live in the country's vast hinterland. The horror of Haryana is a collective national shame for which we all must hang our heads in shame.

#Haryana, #Indian media, #Jat Agitation, #Murthal Highway Gang Rapes

 

Reference Link: http://www.dailyo.in/politics/murthal-highway-mass-gang-rape-jat-agitation-haryana-national-media-arnab-goswami-mahishasur-barkha-dutt-the-tribune-smriti-irani/story/1/9266.html

 

Think. Reflect. Act

Dear Perverts,

We know when you are leching at us. And you look like morons.

Sincerely,

Women.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDYFqQZEdRA#t=26

The three year old bravehreat that Delhi forgot

 

Written by Ketki Angre

 

New Delhi:  He chokes as he speaks. His words barely audible as he tries to compose himself in between sobs. For a man in his mid-30s, he's aged beyond his years in the last one year. But the trauma, pressure and despair that he has been staring at, could weaken even the most resilient.

When his three-and-a-half-year-old daughter went to play-school on December 17, 2012, it was just a regular day. His family not entirely aware of the emotional and physical trauma another family in Dwarka was only just beginning to understand.

It was barely eight hours after the 23-year-old paramedic student was gang-raped in a moving bus last year last that his daughter came home feeling ashamed, violated and unsure of what she must do. When his daughter explained what had happened to her, he and his wife realised she had been sexually abused at her supposedly 'safe' play-school, by her principal's husband.

Delhi and India was seething with rage as horrific details of the December 16 gang-rape case started coming to light. That's perhaps where the similarities between the two cases end. As India battled for a 23-year-old's fight for justice, this family soldiered on, alone.

The mother of the toddler told NDTV, "He (the accused) threatened my daughter and said if you tell your mom and dad, I will hang you from the fan." Her husband adds, "Mentally she is traumatised. Her physical wounds will heal. But what about her psychological scars? Many nights she wakes up screaming."

The police lodged an FIR. The child was also made to sign as complainant, though her signature was nothing more than a few letters of the alphabet she had learned at school, something, that she, not surprisingly, couldn't remember the next time she was asked about it.

The child even identified the accused in a police line-up, gave a statement to a magistrate but the case hasn't moved much in the last one year. On the other hand, the accused, who is in his forties, was arrested, and got bail in a few weeks.

The attempt to buy this family's silence came just a few days before the bail application. Her mother says, "The accused's sister came a few days before the bail hearing and offered us money. She said they would give us Rs. 4-5 lakh, even more, to stop pursuing the case. They tried to intimidate us by saying it's about our child's honour and that they had enough money to get away. We told them, our daughter's honour is not for sale."

The four-year-old has spent most of the last one year between the court room and the police station. In her case, there was no public outcry for justice - not even a fast-track court. The biggest irony: for her to get justice she has had to remember every detail of her trauma during the court hearings that she is trying so hard to forget.

The family has been threatened, intimidated, even lured. They have had little social support, save an NGO that is helping them with legal aid but the father is the only earning member, who does two jobs to keep the house running.

Ask him how he finds the strength to fight, the father says, "My daughter is my inspiration. Whenever I look at her, it strengthens my determination to fight. I want to see her smile without any fear. I want my daughters to succeed. Most of all, I don't want this to happen to anyone else."

It's this single-minded determination and hope that has kept him going.

One year after Delhi's gang-rape, many have talked of keeping the flame Delhi's brave-heart lit alive. It's a spirit that this father and mother strive for every day no matter what the odds are.

Source: http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/lonely-battle-for-justice-the-three-year-old-braveheart-that-delhi-forgot-459942?ndtv_rhs

It couldn't get any worse than this!

Assam: 4 men gangrape woman, gouge her eyes out, kill her 

Four men allegedly raped a woman inside a tempo, gouged out her eyes and beat her before throwing the victim out of the vehicle leading to her death in upper Assam's Lakhimpur district, sparking outrage from locals. 

The incident took place on Friday when the woman had boarded a shared tempo to pick up her six-year-old daughter from school at Boginadi area, about 14 km from the district headquarters town Lakhimpur, police sources said.

The woman was allegedly raped by the four men inside the tempo before they gouged out her eyes, injured her on the head and neck, they said.

Assam: 4 men gangrape woman, gorge her eyes, kill her

The locals saw the accused throwing the injured woman out of the tempo, about 50 metres away from Boginadi police station on the National Highway following which they informed the police which admitted her to a local hospital. The woman was later taken to the Gauhati Medical College Hospital where she succumbed to her wounds on Sunday.
Women's organisations and locals blocked the National Highway 52 on Monday with her body and condemned the incident, demanding justice for the woman and arrest of the culprits.
On the district administration officials assuring them to nab the culprits, the protesters withdrew their blockade on the road, which had disrupted traffic movement to and from Arunachal Pradesh for about two hours.
Meanwhile, police has picked up two persons for questioning in this connection.

 Source: Press Trust of India - http://ibnlive.in.com/news/assam-4-men-gangrape-woman-gouge-her-eyes-out-kill-her/436045-3-251.html

NIRBHAYA/FEARLESS

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  Margaret Mead

An appeal to all of you out there who watch this theatrical form of the 'NIRBHAYA' story - No young girl, women, children should go through such heart wrenching violence in India and through all the corners of this very world.
I salute Purna Jagannathan, Yael Farber and their entire theater group for putting up this story before us.

To ensure that it reaches all of us, to know, to feel the pain, to understand and mobilse a larger audience to combat violence against women. To not let go off the perpetrators of this heinous crime committed against women across the world.

"NIRBHAYA" - Inspirational theater empowering the survivors of gender-based violence to speak out worldwide. Directed by Yael Farber.

Please do watch and share: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nirbhaya/nirbhaya-award-winning-human-rights-theatre-india

Through the eyes of moral values and the mock of intellectual relationships - Sexual Harassment by Jurists gives a new perspective!

"Through my looking Glass" -  by Stella James

Sometimes the most difficult things to write about are also the most essential. I feel this is especially true when many people, much more scholarly than oneself, have already said and written a lot around the issue, and yet your own experience does not seem to fit into the wide net that they’ve cast. Gandhi once said “I have something far more powerful than arguments, namely, experience”. And it is from these words that I derive what I consider the ‘value’ of this piece – not my experience per se, but from what I feel that my experience can tell us about much discussed issues in the country today.

Last December was momentous for the feminist movement in the country – almost an entire population seemed to rise up spontaneously against the violence on women, and the injustices of a seemingly apathetic government. In the strange irony of situations that our world is replete with, the protests were the backdrop of my own experience. In Delhi at that time, interning during the winter vacations of my final year in University, I dodged police barricades and fatigue to go to the assistance of a highly reputed, recently retired Supreme Court judge whom I was working under during my penultimate semester. For my supposed diligence, I was rewarded with sexual assault (not physically injurious, but nevertheless violating) from a man old enough to be my grandfather. I won’t go into the gory details, but suffice it to say that long after I’d left the room, the memory remained, in fact, still remains, with me.

So what bothered me about this incident? As a conditioned member of the society, I had quickly “gotten over” the incident. But was that what worried me: that I had accepted what was essentially an ‘unacceptable’ situation. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the crux of my unease lay in my inability to find a frame in which to talk, or even think, about my experience. While the incident affected me deeply, I felt little anger and almost no rancour towards the man; instead I was shocked and hurt that someone I respected so much would do something like this. My strongest reaction really, was overwhelming sadness. But this sort of response was new to me. That I could understand his actions and forgive him for them, or that I could continue to think of him as an essentially ‘good’ person, seemed a naïve position that were completely at odds with what I had come to accept was the “right” reaction to such incidents.

This emotional response was also completely at odds with the powerful feelings of righteous anger that the protestors in Delhi displayed. I am not trying to say that anger at the violence that women face is not a just or true response, but the polarization of women’s rights debates in India along with their intense emotionality, left me feeling that my only options were to either strongly condemn the judge or to betray my feminist principles. Perhaps this confusion came out of an inadequate understanding of feminist literature, but if so, isn’t then my skewed perception a failing of feminism itself? If the shared experiences of women cannot be easily understood through a feminist lens, then clearly there is a cognitive vacuum that feminism fails to fill. Feminists talk of the guilt a woman faces when sexually harassed, like it is her fault. I felt a similar guilt, except, my guilt wasn’t at being assaulted, but at not reacting more strongly than I did. The very perspective that was meant to help me make sense of my experiences as a woman was the one that obscured the resolution of the problem in my own mind, presumably an effect that feminism does not desire. And if not a result of feminist theory itself, the form that it has taken in India, especially after recent incidents of sexual assault, strengthened the feeling of “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” in a fight that I feel I can no longer take sides in.

All the talk during that time was of stricter punishment, of baying for the blood of “creepy” men. Five years of law school had taught me to look to the law for all solutions – even where I knew that the law was hopelessly inadequate – and my reluctance to wage a legal battle against the judge left me feeling cowardly. On reflection though, I cannot help but wonder why I should have felt that way. As mentioned earlier, I bore, and still bear, no real ill-will towards the man, and had no desire to put his life’s work and reputation in question. On the other hand, I felt I had a responsibility to ensure that other young girls were not put in a similar situation. But I have been unable to find a solution that allows that. Despite the heated public debates, despite a vast army of feminist vigilantes, despite new criminal laws and sexual harassment laws, I have not found closure. The lack of such an alternative led to my facing a crippling sense of intellectual and moral helplessness.

The incident is now a while behind me, and they say time heals all wounds. But during the most difficult emotional times, what helped me most was the ‘insensitivity’ of a close friend whose light-hearted mocking allowed me to laugh at an incident (and a man) that had caused me so much pain. Allowing myself to feel more than just anger at a man who violated me, something that I had never done before, is liberating! So, I want to ask you to think of one thing alone – when dealing with sexual violence, can we allow ourselves to embrace feelings beyond or besides anger, and to accept the complexity of emotions that we face when dealing with any traumatic experience?

Source: http://jilsblognujs.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/through-my-looking-glass/

Incest was considered sinful many moons back, now rape gets a new name- 'revenge'. All in the name of honor!

Dad, friend rape and kill teen for eloping with boy

Sandhya Nair, TNN

MUMBAI: A 17-year-old girl who had eloped to Mumbai with her boyfriend from Uttar Pradesh was allegedly gang-raped and murdered by her father and his friend on October 31 in the jungles of Kashimira. She was reportedly four months pregnant.

The accused men were arrested on Monday and remanded in police custody till November 15. "They have independently confessed to the rape and murder," said senior inspector Fatehsinh Patil of Kashimira police.

The girl had eloped with her 19-year-old boyfriend from their village of Komalpur in UP's Ghazipur district four months ago. The couple had a wedding ceremony in a temple and were staying in Bhayander(West).

Two weeks ago, the girl's 45-year-old father, a labourer, tracked them down. He and his friend — a resident of Dachkulpada Road of Kashimira — went to the girl's house and dragged her away. The boyfriend, who works as a labourer, allegedly fled during the encounter.

At his friend's home, the father urged the girl to return to their hometown but she refused. Incensed, he and his friend forcibly took her into the jungles at Dachkulpada in Kashimira on the night of October 31. The girl was first raped by the father, who then asked his friend to repeat the act to "teach her a lesson", said the police.

Fearing she would report the sexual assault, they strangled her with her dupatta. The body was left at the spot. They returned to the jungle the next day to confirm the girl was dead and moved the body into some bushes.

According to the Kashimira police, the murder came to light when the father, in a drunk state, mentioned raping and killing his daughter to a waiter in a hotel in Bhayander on Saturday. The waiter informed his boss, who alerted the Kashimira police. On Monday, police picked up the father, who led them to the decomposed body. His friend was arrested on Tuesday morning.

The father told the police that she was four months pregnant and that she had eloped with the boy earlier in the year too. He had convinced her to return home on that occasion. He said the elopement had "tarnished the family name" and her frequent elopement for "sex was the reason he raped her and got his friend to do so too".

The father and his friend have been booked under IPC sections 302 (murder), 376 (gang rape), 201 (disappearance of evidence) and 34 (common intention). The police are searching for the girl's boyfriend.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Dad-friend-rape-and-kill-teen-for-eloping-with-boy/articleshow/25277528.cms

Gang rape in India, routine and invisible

Ellen Barry & Mansi Choksi, NYT News Service | Oct 27, 2013, 12.09 PM IST

The gang rape of a photojournalist by five suspects in Mumbai reinforces the notion that such crimes remain largely invisible in India.

MUMBAI, India — At 5:30pm on that Thursday, four young men were playing cards, as usual, when Mohammed Kasim Sheikh's cellphone rang and he announced that it was time to go hunting. Prey had been spotted, he told a friend. When the host asked what they were going to hunt, he said, "A beautiful deer."

As two men rushed out, the host smirked, figuring they did not like losing at cards.

Two hours later, a 22-year-old photojournalist limped out of a ruined building. She had been raped repeatedly by five men, asked by one to re-enact pornographic acts displayed on a cellphone. After she left, the men dispersed to their wives or mothers, if they had them; it was dinnertime. None of their previous victims had gone to the police. Why should this one?

The trial in the Mumbai gang-rape case has opened to a drowsy and ill-attended courtroom, without the crush of reporters who documented every twist in a similar case in New Delhi in which a woman died after being gang-raped on a private bus. The accused, barefoot, sit on a bench at the back of the courtroom, observing the arguments with blank expressions, as if they were being conducted in Mandarin. All have pleaded not guilty. They are slight men with ordinary faces, nothing imposing, the kind one might see at any bus stop or tea stall.

But the Mumbai case provides an unusual glimpse into a group of bored young men who had committed the same crime often enough to develop a routine. The police say the men had committed at least five rapes in the same spot. Their casual confidence reinforces the notion that rape has been a largely invisible crime here, where convictions are infrequent and victims silently go away. Not until their arrest, at a moment when sexual violence has grabbed headlines and risen to the top of the state's agenda, did the seriousness of the crime sink in.

An editor at the photographer's publication, who was present when a witness identified the first of the five suspects, a juvenile, said the teenager dissolved in tears as soon as he was accused.

"It was exactly like watching a kid in school who has been caught doing something," said the editor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the identity of the victim, who cannot be identified according to Indian law. "It's like a bunch of kids who found a dog and tied a bunch of firecrackers to its tail, just to see what would happen. Only in this case it was far more egregious. It was malevolent, what happened."

In spots Mumbai is an anarchic jumble, its high-rise buildings flanked by vest-pocket slums and vacant properties that have reverted to near-wilderness. One such place is the Shakti Mills, a ruin from the prosperous days of Mumbai's textile industry. When night falls, it is a treacherous span of darkness lined with sinkholes and debris, but still in the middle of the city, still close enough to look up and watch the lights flicker on in the Shangri-La Hotel.

The photographer and her colleague, a 21-year-old man, were interns at an English-language publication and had decided to include this spot — the backdrop for any number of fashion shoots — as part of a photo essay on the city's abandoned buildings, the editor said. On that Thursday last August, they reached the ruined mill about an hour before sunset.

The five men they encountered there later came from slums near the mill complex, claustrophobic concrete warrens where electrical wires tangle at one's head and acrid water flows in open gutters around one's feet.

None of the men worked regularly. There were jobs chicken-plucking at a neighborhood stand — a hot, stinking eight-hour shift that paid 250 rupees, or $4. The men told their families they wanted something better, something indoors, but that thing never seemed to come. They passed time playing cards and drinking. Luxury was pressed in their faces in the sinuous form of the Lodha Bellissimo, a 48-story apartment building rising from an adjacent lot.

"Every boy in this neighborhood, including myself, would look at those buildings and say, 'One day, I will own a flat in that building,' " said Yasin Sheikh, 22, who knew two of the accused men from the neighborhood. Because of his work helping find slum locations for film crews, he sometimes has a chance to interact with wealthy people, he said, and it fills him with yearning.

"I feel really sad around them, because I want to sit at the table with them," he said.

Only Kasim Sheikh, 20, the card player who took the call, seemed to have shaken off the drag of poverty. A plump man in a neighborhood of the half-starved, he wore flashy shirts and hooked up his friends with catering jobs at weddings. He had been convicted of theft — iron, steel and other scrap from a railroad site — and occasionally provided information to the police, according to Mumbai's joint police commissioner, Himanshu Roy.

Some people steered clear of Sheikh. The grandmother of one of the accused men, a 16-year-old whose name is being withheld because of his age, had forbidden Sheikh to cross their threshold. But her grandson craved nice things; that was his weakness, his grandmother said. Sheikh "wore good clothes, he had a nice mobile, obviously he would, because he was a thief," said Yasin Sheikh, the neighbor.

When another of their friends, a 27-year-old father of two named Salim Ansari, spotted the interns in the mill that day, the first thing he did was call Kasim Sheikh to tell him that their prey had arrived.

Nothing to lose

During the year since the Delhi gang rape, sexual violence has been discussed endlessly in India, but there are few clear answers to the questions of how much is it happening or why.

One problem is that perpetrators may not view their actions as a grave crime, but something closer to mischief. A survey of more than 10,000 men carried out in six Asian countries — India not among them — and published in The Lancet Global Health journal in September came up with startling data. It found that, when the word "rape" was not used as part of a questionnaire, more than one in 10 men in the region admitted to forcing sex on a woman who was not their partner.

Asked why, 73 percent said the reason was "entitlement." Fifty-nine percent said their motivation was "entertainment seeking," agreeing with the statements "I wanted to have fun" or "I was bored." Flavia Agnes, a Mumbai women's rights lawyer who has been working on rape cases since the 1970s, said the findings rang true to her experience.

"It's just frivolous; they just do it casually," she said. "There is so much abject poverty. They just want to have a little fun on the side. That's it. See, they have nothing to lose."

The photographer and her colleague reached the mill but, visually, it was not what they wanted. That is when two men approached them, the victim told the police later, offering to show them a route farther in. There the images were better, and the two had been working for half an hour when the two men returned.

'The prey is here'

This time they came back with a third, Sheikh, who told them something odd — "Our boss has seen you, and you have to come with us now" — and insisted they take a path deeper into the complex. As they walked, she called an editor, who said to leave immediately, but it was too late for that. "Come inside, the prey is here," Sheikh called out, and two more men joined them.

The men said that the woman's colleague was a murder suspect, asked the pair to remove their belts and used them to tie the man up. After that, the woman told the police, "the third person and a person who had a mustache took me to a place that was like a broken room."

The men had done the same thing a month before, said Roy, the police commissioner, taking turns raping an 18-year-old call-center worker who, accompanied by her boyfriend, had sprained her ankle and was trying to take a shortcut through the mill. They had done the same thing with a woman who worked as a scavenger in a garbage dump, and a sex worker, and a transvestite, Roy said.

Sheikh took the broken neck of a beer bottle out of his shirt pocket and thrust it at the young woman, telling her: "You don't know what a bastard I am. You're not the first girl I've raped," she told the police later, according to the charge sheet filed in the case.

On the other side of the wall, her friend heard the woman cry out. "An inquiry is going on," the man guarding him said. They went in to her and returned, one by one.

"Did you inquire properly?" Sheikh said to one as he came out.

"No, she's not talking," he replied.

So Sheikh said he would "go inquire again," and the rest of them laughed.

At last they brought her out, weeping, and told the two to leave along the railroad tracks. Before releasing her, they threatened to upload video of the attack onto the Internet if she reported the crime, a strategy that had worked with previous victims.

But this one did not hesitate. The two caught a cab to the nearest hospital. There they reported the crime, and the woman's mother arrived. "I went inside. I saw her there crying," her mother told the police later. "She told me in English, 'Mummy, I'm vanished.' "

The woman did not respond to a request for an interview.

Sheikh, too, saw his mother for a few moments that night. He discussed the rape with her, she said, and tried to explain why it had happened.

"I asked Kasim, 'Son, why did you do this to her? If it happened to your sister, would you come here and tell me or would you beat him?' " said his mother, Chandbibi Sheikh. He told her that his friends had come upon the couple embracing in the mill, and "they thought: 'What is she doing with this boy here? She must be loose.' "

She related this exchange from the family's home, a sort of shelf wedged between a gas station and a garbage dump; as she spoke, a rat the size of a kitten clambered over containers stacked in a corner. She said far too much onus was being put on the men.

"Obviously, the fault is the girl's," she said. "Why did she have to go to that jungle? It's her fault, too. Also, she was wearing skimpy clothes."

She did not deny that he had done it. "He must have," she said. "He told me that they tied up the boy who was doing bad things to her and said, 'Madam, let us also do it.' The madam said, 'Don't do it to me, take my mobile, take my camera, but don't do it to me.' Her body was uncovered. How could he control himself? And so it happened."

High-level response

Though the men in the mill may not have known it, rape had become a matter of great public import in India, a gauge of a city's identity. Mumbai's top officials, who had told themselves that the Delhi gang rape could not have happened here, were horrified and initiated a broad, high-level response, as if an act of terrorism had taken place.

The police lighted up their networks of slum informants and all five were arrested and gave confessions in quick succession. Several made pitiful attempts to escape. Sheikh went to the visitor's room of a nearby hospital and covered himself with a blanket, trying to blend in with a crowd of relatives. He was caught with 50 rupees, or about 81 cents, in his pocket. When the police asked him to sign his confession, he told them he could not write, so he signed it with a thumbprint.

"It is incredible how quickly the whole thing unraveled," said the editor, who was present when the photographer's colleague picked the first of the five men out of a lineup. A second victim, the call-center worker, came forward, inspired by the first, and said she was ready to testify. The suspects confessed to the other rapes under questioning, the police said.

The public prosecutor selected for the case is famous for prosecuting terrorists, with a resume of 628 life sentences, 30 death sentences and 12 men, as he put it, "sent to the gallows."

Much news coverage over the next days zeroed in on the defendants' poverty, but Roy shrugged off that line of inquiry. After interrogating the five accused men personally, he said they were "social outcasts," not indicative of any deeper tensions in the city.

"They were deviants, sociopaths, predators," he said in an interview. "If there was a larger socioeconomic framework, these crimes would be happening again and again. It was only these guys. I'm 100 percent sure that this kind of crime doesn't happen in Mumbai. I've been here all my life and have been born and brought up here."

But in a constellation of neighborhoods around Mumbai, people are still trying to match up the crime with the ordinary men they knew.

Shahjahan Ansari, the wife of the oldest accused man, Salim Ansari, looked terrified when a stranger appeared at her door, at a hulking, trash-strewn public housing complex beside a petroleum refinery on a distant edge of the city. The neighbors had started to shun the family since Salim's arrest became public, and she dreaded the extra attention.

"We can't even walk on the street. You don't understand," she said. Inside the apartment, she calmed down a little. The whole story baffled her; she said she had no idea who her husband's friends were or what he did during the day when she went to work cleaning houses. All she knew was that until his arrest, he came home for dinner every night, "He was to me like any husband is to his wife," she said.

"How do I know how he got into this mess? It must be the Devil," murmured Salim's mother, who was sitting on the floor, one eye blind, cloudy white.

Ansari was remembering better days before her husband lost his job, at a factory that made cardboard boxes. He was so proud of the factory, with its big machines, that he brought his sons to watch him on Sunday shifts. Tonight the younger one was streaked with dust; the older one watched from a cot, glassy-eyed and much smaller than his 10 years, bony limbs folded under his chin. She would try, Ms. Ansari said, to move them somewhere else, to a place where no one knew who their father was.

"I want my children to grow up to be good human beings, that's all," the mother said.

Neha Thirani Bagri contributed reporting.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Gang-rape-in-India-routine-and-invisible/articleshow/24774478.cms

Why Sex Education is important in countries with a high Rape ratio over women's safety

Hello everyone,

While this blog is focused on sharing news and resources on Rape and sexual crimes. I couldn't resist sharing this picture and information I found below on Facebook. Here it is for you to read and share widely!

Have a super weekend!!!

The first response many give when asked about rape is 'death sentence for rapists'. While the individual who is sexually assaulted has all the right to argue for death penalty for rapists, the society must understand that there is absolutely no country that has prevented or eliminated rape by implementing death sentence.

What does not prevent rape:

1) Shouting death sentence for rapists every time a rape incident gets media publicity.

2) Making women cover themselves from head to feet.

3) Cultural worshiping of women as goddess and respectable beings.

What can prevent rape:

1) Implementing Sex Education in schools and colleges.

2) Taking action against educational institutions that punish boys and girls for talking to each other. These institutions are the reason many men dont even know how to approach a woman.

3) Teaching our children that no one is inferior because of their gender and making them understand the art of asking consent from the person they wish to have sex with.

The loudness of the mob voice that shouts for death penalty makes us blind to the various underlying social and cultural factors that produce rapists. If we can reach the childhood of these rapists and change their understanding of women and sex when they were kids, they would not turn into rapists in future. Lets try to create a social and educational system that does not produce rapists in the first place.

Source: Picture and text taken from Facebook

Judgment in Dec 16 gang-rape case: Salient features

NEW DELHI: While pronouncing the verdict, the fast-track court described the Dec 16 gang-rape as "premeditated" and "brutal" act.
 

Salient features of the judgment

* Delhi court convicts four accused of murder, gang-rape, unnatural offences, kidnapping, dacoity, destruction of evidence and criminal conspiracy, among others.

* The court describes the Dec 16 gang-rape as "premeditated" and "brutal" act.
* The court says the facts made all the accused liable for the "cold blooded murder" of the "defenceless victim".
* The injuries were caused in a "brutal manner" and the death was also not accidental, the court says in a 237 page judgment.
* The rods caused as many as "18 internal injuries to several organs" and the cause of death in the case was the direct consequence of the multiple injuries sustained by her.
* The victim was "humiliated" and beaten up inside the bus with the intention of causing death.
* Rejecting claim of Mukesh, that he was only driving the bus and had not participated in the gang rape, the court said they all are liable for gang rape committed with the victim
* The accused had knowledge of what they were doing, says court.
* Court says gang rapists tried to kill her male friend of the victim and says that his evidence is of vital importance in deciding the act of all the accused.
* Court praised Delhi Police investigators for their prompt and professional action.
* Court says dying declaration of victim was consistent, corroborative of the material aspects of the case.
* Court says the bus was on the road not for earning through dropping passenger to their destination bit the purpose was to commit the crime.

Timeline of Delhi gang rape case

* Dec 16, 2012: A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern raped by six people, including a juvenile, inside a moving bus in Delhi.

* Dec 17: Bus driver Ram Singh and two other accused are arrested.

* Dec 18: Protests over the incident, crowds clash with police in central Delhi. Fourth accused arrested.

* Dec 19: Two accused brought before a Delhi court. Accused Vinay tells court "hang me".

* Dec 21: Fifth accused, who was 17-and-half years old at the time of the crime, arrested from Anand Vihar in east Delhi while boarding a bus to flee to his hometown in Uttar Pradesh.

Sixth accused Akshay Kumar Singh nabbed from Bihar.

* Dec 22: Gang rape victim records statement before a sub-divisional magistrate.

* Dec 23: Fast track court set up by the Delhi High Court.

* Dec 24: The government announces setting up of a committee to suggest amendments to laws for speedy trials and enhanced punishment for criminals in rape cases.

* Dec 27: Victim airlifted to Singapore for treatment.

* Dec 29: She succumbs to her injuries at a Singapore hospital.

* Dec 30: The body of the gang rape victim flown back to Delhi, cremated.

* Jan 3, 2013: A case of rape, murder, kidnapping, destruction of evidence, and attempted murder filed against all the six accused in the case.

* Jan 7: Court orders in-camera trial.

* Jan 28: Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) declares that one of the accused is a minor.

* Feb 2: Fast track court paves the way for trial and charges five men for murder, gang rape and other offences.

* Feb 3: The Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013, issued. The relevant bill passed by the Lok Sabha March 19 and the Rajya Sabha March 21, making laws more stringent.

* Feb 5: Trial begins in the case and court records statements of accused.

* March 11: Accused Ram Singh found hanging in his Tihar Jail cell.

* May 17: Victim's mother appears as a prosecution witness before the trial court and says "give justice to my daughter".

* June 14: Juvenile accused turns 18 in custody. Age determined based on school certificate.

* July 11: Juvenile Justice Board in New Delhi defers verdict on the minor accused to July 25.

* July 25: Juvenile Justice Board defers verdict on minor accused till Aug 5.

* Aug 22: The Supreme Court allows the juvenile board to go ahead with pronouncing its verdict.

* Aug 31: Juvenile Justice Board sentences the minor accused to a three-year stay in a special home.

* Sep 3: Delhi court reserves its order.

* Sep 10: All the four accused Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Kumar Singh are held guilty on all counts. Court to pronounce quantum of punishment Sep 11.

* Sep 11: Delhi court defers verdict on the four men accused to Sep 13.

* Sep 13: The court sentences to death Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Kumar Singh.

Source: http://in.news.yahoo.com/judgment-dec-16-gang-rape-case-salient-features-163203988.html

Delhi gang rapists sentenced to death

The four men faced either life imprisonment or death by hanging [AFP]

An Indian court has sentenced four men to death for the gang rape and murder of a studen

Four men have been convicted over roles in rape and murder of 23-year-old woman in capital Delhi last year.

An Indian court has sentenced four men to death for the gang rape and murder of a student in the capital Delhi.

Friday's ruling came after her parents begged for the "cold-blooded" killers' execution.

Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta were convicted on Tuesday in the December attack of the 23-year-old woman, a crime that unleashed a wave of public anger over the treatment of women in India.

The woman died two weeks after the attack of internal injuries.

Judge Yogesh Khanna said on Friday the case fell in the "rarest of rare category", rejecting pleas for lighter sentence.

'Cannot turn blind eye'

Khanna said the attack "shocked the collective conscience" of India, and that "courts cannot turn a blind eye" to such crimes.

"This case definitely falls in the rarest of rare categories and warrants the exemplary punishment of death," he added.

The four men faced either life imprisonment or death by hanging.

The men called out to reporters as police drove them into the courthouse complex before the sentencing hearing.

"Save us, brothers! Save us!" they could be heard shouting from the police van.

One of the convicted men, Vinay Sharma, broke down in tears and cried loudly as the sentence was announced.

Earlier, protesters outside the court had demanded that the four men must be hanged.

As the news broke, crowds inside the building and outside the courtroom roared with cheers and applauded the judgement.

The prosecution team congratulated each other, with lead lawyer Dayan Krishnan saying: "We did our job. We are happy with this sentence".

The father of the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said the family was also satisfied as he left with his wife and sons.

"We are very happy. Justice has been delivered," he told reporters inside court flanked by his wife and sons.

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/09/201391392314350126.html

Delhi rape suspects face death sentences

Juvenile convict was sentenced to three years in a correctional facility, the maximum allowed by law [AFP]

Four men will learn on Friday if they are to hang for the shocking murder and gang rape of an Indian

Indian judge will announce if case of four men, accused for rape and murder, fulfills for meriting death sentence. Four men will learn on Friday if they are to hang for the shocking murder and gang rape of an Indian student after her parents begged for the "cold-blooded" killers' execution. Three days after finding the gang guilty of a murderous assault which sickened a nation, Judge Yogesh Khanna will announce whether it fulfils the "rarest of rare" criteria for crimes that merit capital punishment. There has been a huge clamour for the four, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh to be executed for their attack on a 23-year-old physiotherapy student and her male companion on board a bus on December 16. After prosecution lawyers argued on Wednesday the gang were guilty of a "diabolical" crime, the victim's mother implored the judge to hand down the death sentence. "We beg the court that justice should be given to our daughter," said the mother, who cannot be named to protect the identity of her late daughter. "It was not merely a mistake, they planned and killed her mercilessly," she told reporters. The victim's father has said only the death penalty can bring the family some closure. During Wednesday's hearing, defence lawyers argued Judge Khanna should resist "political pressure" and instead jail the gang for life, citing the youth of their clients who are all in their teens or 20s. Rape cases increasing Handing down his verdict at the end of a seven-month trial on Tuesday, Khanna found the men guilty of the "cold-blooded" murder of a "helpless victim" whose fight for life won her the nickname of Braveheart. Feelings though are running high in a country disgusted by daily reports of gang rapes and sex assaults on children. A total of 1,098 cases of rape have been reported to police in Delhi alone so far this year, according to figures in The Times of India on Friday. That represents a massive increase on the 450 recorded in the same period last year, although campaigners say the rise is reflective of a greater willingness by victims to come forward after the December 16 attack. Lawyers for the men have already said they will appeal the convictions in the Delhi High Court, which will spell years of argument and delays in India's notoriously slow legal system. In appeal, the defence is likely to advocate lesser sentences for some of the gang, and argue it was a "spur of the moment" crime and not premeditated. There was widespread anger after a juvenile who was convicted last month for his role in the bus attack was sentenced to just three years in a correctional facility, the maximum allowed by law. Rattled by the mass protests, the government rushed through new anti-rape laws and ordered the trial be held in a special fast-track court.

Source:  http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/09/201391362338796515.html