CASTRATION CORRECT VERDICT FOR RAPISTS

Punishment or castration would be a short-term solution. Agreed, severe punishment for rape would send a chill down the spine of criminals. But a criminal will eventually figure out ways of saving himself from punishment. What our society needs is moral education. It is we who have corrupted the value system. Let us take responsibility for our acts and make efforts to correct the system. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, a woman is raped every 20 minutes in India. What is more shameful is that according to the statistics, the possibility of someone being convicted for the crime has declined by a third. Last year, 24,206 rape cases were reported — up 10 percent from 2010. This shows an increase of 873 percent since 1971 from when the Crime Bureau began recording these statistics. What is scarier? Last year, every third victim was a child. And that many cases go unreported. According to reports, for every case reported, 50 go unreported. If you thought that rape was a crime committed by strangers in the dark, know that a majority of rapes are committed by a person known to the victim, who stalks the victim, knows the victim’s schedule and, more importantly, has the victim’s trust and access to the victim. Stranger rapes are a minuscule percentage of the rapes committed but get reported more often, according to the Delhi police. “In 2011, only 2.46 percent stranger-related rape cases were reported, in comparison to 3.94 percent in 2010.” They also said that around 97 percent of the perpetrators were known to the victims. (Indian Express, 7 January 2012). Many sociologists and social commentators have attempted to analyse the various factors that could be leading up to this alarming rise in the number of rapes. 

The Justice J'S Verma committee on sexual offences against women rejected the suggestion of chemical castration of rapists, as it considered handing down such a punishment would violate human rights and that mutilation of the body is not permitted under the Constitution. "We note that it would be unconstitutional and inconsistent with basic human rights treaties for the state to expose any citizen without their consent to potentially dangerous medical side effects. However, it is time to punish rapists most severely so that such mistake will not recur.  The nation, which had almost got immune to rapes, with one rape taking place in the country every 22 minutes, has suddenly woken up from the deep slumber after the gory Delhi rape case. And now, India is giving unanimous call to the government to dole out severe punishment to the rapists and to plug the lacunae in the anti-rape laws. Amidst all this, a strong voice has also been raised to introduce chemical castration as a punishment for the rapists, which has already been accepted in various US states and many countries in Europe. Is it time to give this severe punishment?

Calicut Krishnan Ramani