Every now and then we get shocking news of rapes been committed followed by protests , knee jerk reaction by government and sometime fast track courts. Even with strong laws and increased awareness we have not been possible to stop it effectively .In this article with all due respect to all agencies involved i will critically analyze in detail about reasons behind rapes and other crimes.
First of all me start with ourselves that is our societal structure. There is for sure some basic problem with our so called great culture, The parents are certainly not able to give proper ethics and values to their children resulting in money and power oriented mind set among youth . And when this mind set distort toward crime this youth turns into dreaded and ugly criminals.
Further the family and caste system is much deep rooted that people blindly support person from their family/caste/religion and simply turn their eyes blind on their criminal conduct. False complaint , false witnesses etc are being prepared to save the criminals. In fact sometime strange logic are given to support crimes committed by the person. This blind support many times leads to boost confidence of the criminals making him more dreaded , resulting in crimes like murder rapes etc.
Secondly lets discuss about tough rape laws. It has always been welcome step to make laws act tough towards criminals. But somehow these tough law has not been as effective as expected by law makers. In-fact these laws have been more misused, than being used, by miscreants . Cases have been seen where criminals ask their lady family members to lodge false women harassment case against the people who have lodged case against them.Making tough laws will not solve problem , in fact it may make the situation complicated. I feel existing laws are sufficient enough , if implemented properly.
Thirdly, the most criticized agency,Police . Somehow due to various reasons despite best of efforts at various levels the policemen have not been sensitized to the level required. The Police need to be properly sensitized to act quickly and efficiently . Quick reaction by police may help in gathering important evidence from scene of crime. Further police should do fair and unbiased investigation ,digging deep to bring forth the actual criminal . proper investigation will help into getting the criminal punished in the court. In case of false complaint police should follow up in the court to make sure that false complainant gets due punishment. This will help in stopping misuse of the laws.
Also Police needs to identify vulnerable pockets and devise deployment plans of forces to induce fear into minds of criminals and sense of safety among public. Phone numbers of police helpline should be put up at public places.Government may take up task of educating youths through police about laws and remedies.And further help of youths may be taken to spread awareness among public and sensitize general public , so that they may report crime at the earliest and help police by giving proper witness statements. Further training for self defense may also be given to women at every school and college.
Fourthly ,Media which have done commendable job in educating people and reporting incidents of the crime at the earliest. But the problem comes when media becomes over enthusiastic and start whats called as "Media Trial". Media needs to restrain itself from doing so , as it effects investigation done by police. Sometimes media pressure effects so much that the investigating officers gets under pressure and proper investigation gets affected adversely . Though not sure but media trial may also effect judiciary.
Last but the most important is Judiciary. With all due respect to the Judiciary, the long delay in trials of cases is very saddening. Due to this delay first of all the victim gets demoralized , secondly probability of witnesses getting influenced become higher and thirdly the habitual criminal stops fearing criminal justice system. Fast trials happens only in extremely highlighted case. Even if witnesses are not influenced , with passing time witnesses are bound to forget minor details of the incident which in effect benefits the accused as the lawyer representing the accused will then have higher probability of creating doubt in the mind of the honorable judge.And we all know that our criminal jurisprudence works on proving involvement of criminal beyond doubt.
There has to be revolutionary approach to pace up criminal trial. When police and other branches of administration can work target based and even 24*7 whenever required , Why not judiciary be asked to work target based and not time based. When judiciary calls someone in any case , it should listen it on same day. And crimes of certain dreaded nature should be tried in time bound manner. For example every rape cases should be tried in the same time as it takes to be investigated by police. This will result in speedy justice to the victims and undue harassment in case of false complaint.
All in all we need to haul up whole criminal justice system. The police needs to act swiftly in case of any complaint, judiciary needs to pace up trial , criminals needs to be punished resulting deterrence effect ,false complainants needs to be discouraged and media and society needs to play positive role in educating people.
One of the best article I have read on this issue. Good work gaurav.
ReplyDeletesir i have read ur article and ur efforts is nice to write this.
ReplyDeletebut in my mind some questions got arise when i was going thru this article,,,,
u divide this article in 3 parts,, 1st. social structural problems, 2nd legislation cumbersome but u said as well that if these present laws implmntd well are enough,3rd about the solution i.e. policing and judicial and media functioning.
u said about media is doing good in public awareness, and i also agree with this, but u said police needs to do this they sud do this, but as u r an ips officer u and we all know the ground realities sir, most(not evryone) wants to skip his responsibilities, human being by nature is lazy and u say they needs to do this, in this way that way, they sud do this,,,but i think this is not the solution, solution which i think sir is SYSTEM REFORM, system hav many flaws in itself, system be made like that police personnel get automatically motivated, responsible, accountable, n get fear also, i need ur help sir as u r in the system, HOW TO MAKE REFORM IN THE SYSTEM & WAT REFORM NEED TO MAKE TO bring these things in place so that system can work well and efficiently vis-a-vis POLICE PERSONELL(especially at ground level personnel not more imp like as u sir at highr level bcoz they r already doing their commendable job).
question also arose in my mind about functioning of judiciary but at present i m not able to collect good idea to be posted here, if u can suggest me anymore views sir it wud be helpful to me dvlp some ideas sir.
Giving independence to police by implementing police reforms suggested by supreme court we can make police more accountable, efficient and unbiased.
ReplyDeleteJudiciary needs to be made accountable to give judgement within stipulated time . Delayed judgement results in harassment of victim , accused as well as witnesses of the case