The centre on Saturday, April 21 signed off on an ordinance, or emergency executive order, to introduce capital punishment for child rapists. The move has been seen as an effort to signal the government's commitment to fight sexual crimes against young girls. The change was cleared at a meeting of the Union Cabinet convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi within hours of his return from a five-day foreign tour.
The Cabinet also cleared a second ordinance that will let the government confiscate property of economic offenders who flee the country. The ordinance will now have to be approved in Parliament within the next six months.
The development is significant given nation-wide anger over child rape cases across the country. The public outrage after the horrific rapes in Kathua and Uttar Pradesh's Unnao, much of it initially directed at leaders of the ruling BJP seen to be protecting the rapists in both cases.
Maneka Gandhi, union minister for women and child development, had floated the idea of changing the law last week amid national grief and anger over the gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua. At Saturday's meeting, the proposal was formally moved by the Home Ministry.
Even after the BJP acted against these leaders, the anger over the continuing crimes has shown no abatement with demands that the government do more to protect children. There were also calls for abroad to nudge the government and PM Modi to pay more attention to the condition of women.
It is not clear how a harsher punishment would be deterrent when only 3 out of 10 men charged with raping minors are convicted. The remaining 70 per cent people walk free. This meant that 5,700 people accused of raping minors were acquitted while only 2,241 were convicted in 2015.
(Sources)