Incidents of rape and gang-rape are becoming increasingly frequent in the country. Often the judicial process to punish the accused is so long-drawn and so tortuous that victims often feel they are punished for being the victims of violation.
Given this backdrop, the news that a 13-year-old girl killed her alleged rapist in Rajasthan became a topic of debate in many circles.
According to news reports, a man in Alwar, Rajasthan had been repeatedly raping a 13-year-old girl for many months and even blackmailing her with obscene videos. Fed up with this, the girl strangled the alleged rapist to death when he was under the influence of alcohol. The young girl has been arrested by the police in Rajasthan.
However, a majority of ordinary Indians are convinced the girl did the right thing by killing the man, disturbing as the event is.
This was revealed during a nationwide survey conducted by CVoter on behalf of IANS to gauge public opinion on the issue, which has not received much media attention because of other controversies. The survey covered all educational, socioeconomic and income groups in the country. Overall, 74 per cent of the respondents were of the opinion that the girl did the right thing by killing her alleged rapist while 24 per cent of the respondents felt that she should have approached the police instead.
The feeling was assured by people cutting across political divides. While 77 per cent of NDA supporters felt the girl did the right thing, about 72 per cent of the opposition voters shared the same sentiment. Surprisingly, a larger 77 per cent of male respondents felt the girl did the right thing while about 70 per cent of female respondents shared the same sentiment.
The punishment for rapists had become a major topic of debate recently when a bench of the Supreme Court had reduced the death penalty of a person convicted of raping and killing a 4-year-old girl in 2013 by stating that the accused ‘deserves a chance to reform’ and quoting Oscar Wilde’s, a British writer unknown to 95% of Bharatiyas, “every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future” line.
(With IANS inputs)
