Six years of 'Nirbhaya': DCW Chief urges PM Modi to ensure justice

New Delhi [India], Dec 16 (ANI): Delhi Commission for Women Chief Swati Maliwal urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring perpetrators of the 2012 Delhi gang rape to justice, six years after the heinous incident took place.
In her letter, Maliwal highlighted that despite six years having passed after 'Nirbhaya' was brutally gang-raped in the national capital, the state of women's security in the nation remains unchanged as women continue to get raped and molested in broad daylight. "Our law and order system has kept the criminals and rapists alive. Every day more than 6 rape incidents are reported in the country's capital itself," she added.
"In February 2018, the incident of rape of an eight-month-old girl had shocked me so much that I sat on hunger strike to get justice for the non-terrorists. On the tenth day of my fast, you accepted some of my demands and promised to meet some demands. Among the demands, the provision of execution for girls' rape was 12 years of age. You promised to the country that within 3 months, the law enforcement will increase the police force across the country, take the responsibilities and create a fast-track court," she asserted.
Maliwal also emphasised that these laws and fast track courts have been reduced to papers as not even one of the accused in Nirbhaya's rape case were executed so far.
"Why is the demand of 66,000 policemen in Delhi being unheard of to you? Why is the Government giving slogan of Digital India not able to get Delhi Police equipped with state-of-the-art technology? Why is the case of fast-track court hanging in the balance? Why a high-level committee is not being constituted to investigate the actual implementation of the women's security laws, in which the Home Minister, LG, Delhi Chief Minister, the Police Commissioner and the Delhi Women Commission, who together make Delhi a crime free and fearless?" she asked.
Maliwal also said that it is shameful for "Independent India" that the Prime Minister realised the need for women safety only after she went on a hunger strike.
"Upon the end of the hunger strike, the promises made to increase police resources and accountability ad to increase the fast track court were not fulfilled till today. Even in the memory of Nirbhaya, the central government could not utilise the Nirbhaya fund. That fund has been rotting today and has become a canker for the nation's warriors," Maliwal reiterated.
"Immediately create a high-level committee in every state in which the Chief Minister of the State, Chief Justice of High Court, Commissioner of Police and Women's Commission will be the Chairman, who will strengthen the police and fast-track courts to execute rapists," demanded the DCW Chief.
"Your move will be a real tribute to Nirbhaya. This fight of mine will continue till everyone gets justice without fear," Maliwal wrote.
The 23-year-old paramedic student was raped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in South Delhi by five men and a juvenile. The victim, who was severely assaulted, was thrown out on the road along with her male friend. She succumbed to injuries at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore on December 29, where she had been airlifted for medical treatment.
The incident triggered outrage and protests not only across the country but the world as well, and she subsequently came to be known as 'Nirbhaya', the fearless. The incident prompted the government to overhaul anti-rape laws.
On July 9, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice R. Bhanumathi, upheld the death sentence awarded to four of the accused in May 2017 after three of them - Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, and Pawan Gupta - filed a petition in the court to review the judgment. Akshay Singh, the fourth convict, did not file a review petition against his death sentence.
One of the accused, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in jail nearly three months after the crime, while the juvenile was convicted by the Juvenile Justice Board and was let off in December 2015 after serving three years in a reformation home. (ANI)