On a day when the Centre’s Ministry of Home Affairs told the Supreme Court that the West Bengal authorities are posing a hurdle in the deployment of CISF personnel at R.G.Kar Hospital, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s government got the Aparajita Woman and Child Bill passed in the Assembly with the support of BJP. The bill provides for death penalty to those convicted in rape cases where the victim dies or is rendered permanently crippled, imprisonment for rest of life in rape and gang rape cases, life term or death penalty for repeat offenders in rape cases, probe to be completed within 21 days with possible extension of 15 days, creation of 52 special courts, setting up of Aparajita Task Force in districts headed by a DSP, and jail or fine for unauthorized publishing of court proceedings in rape cases.
BJP pressed for the inclusion of seven amendments providing for stern punishment to police officers who refuse to file rape-related FIRs, to medical officers deliberately causing negligence or delaying post-mortem, or to investigating officers destroying vital evidence, but these amendments were rejected. In her reply, Mamata Banerjee gave a political speech demanding the resignations of BJP chief ministers in whose states heinous rape-murder crimes have been committed. Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan challenged Mamata to get Shahjahan Sheikh, the prime accused in rapes of women in Sandeshkhali, convicted under the new law. Agitating hospital doctors said, that merely amending the law will not be sufficient, strict implementation is the key.
The doctors said, Mamata Banerjee has brought this new law only after her party became scared after their protests. Doctors of R.G.Kar Hospital and other hospitals in Kolkata are not political party workers and their remarks need to be studied carefully. In 2012, a stern anti-rape law was enacted after the infamous Nirbhaya rape-murder incident in Delhi, POCSO Act was made to give justice to sexually abused children. There are some other similar legislations. The doctors are right when they say that sincere implementation of anti-rape law is the key. Mamata Banerjee’s government must regain the trust of people in the system. No doubt, Mamata has prepared a strong anti-rape law and if implemented honestly, it can open the path for giving stern punishment to rapists and murderers. Criminals will start fearing only when two or four rapists and murderers are given death sentence without delay. It is not right on part of BJP to say that Mamata has introduced this bill because of compulsion. The fact is, BJP itself supported this law out of political compulsion.
It would have been better if Mamata had confined her speech to the issue of providing security to women instead of lambasting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was only when she attacked Modi that Shivraj Singh Chouhan had to remind her about Shahjahan Sheikh, the dreaded don of Sandeshkhali, where women still live in fear at night.
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