Living with fear in India's rape province

The two girls were gang-raped and murdered. (Source: Google)

Numbers never lie. In 2013, Uttar Pradesh registered 126 rape cases per week. 

And this did not ring any alarm bells with the state government or Chief Minsiter Akhilesh Yadav. 

Unfortunately, Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav had declared at a public meeting in Moradabad on April 10 that “Ladke, ladke hain.

"Galti ho jati hai (Boys will be boys. They commit mistakes).” He even went a step ahead and said if SP comes to power, he will do away with the provision of death penalty for rape. 

Mulayam’s “Boy will be boys” statement, it seems, has encouraged the perpetrators of the crime. 

Consider the Badaun gang-rape and murder case which has shaken the people across the country: Two Dalit cousins, aged 14 and 16, were gang-raped and murdered. 

As if the atrocity was not enough, their bodies were then hung from a tree in a village. Two police constables are among the seven accused. 

Reports also said the local policemen had turned away the family members of the girls when they had gone to seek help. 

More shame followed, this time in Mulayam’s home district Etawah. A rape victim’s mother was brutally thrashed by the father of the man accused of raping her daughter. 

Her crime? The woman had dared to file a complaint against the accused. 

With nearly 2,000 rapes, close to 8,000 abductions and over 3,000 cases of assault on women with intent to outrage their modesty every year, it seems UP is the worst when it comes to safety of women. 

Moreover, many such cases are never reported by the victims fearing social stigma.

Shockingly, the state police has said rapes happen because women go to the fields to relieve themselves. 

But isn’t this the failure of the panchayats and the administration as providing basic amenities like potable water and toilets are their responsibilities? 

And when did stepping out of your house become a crime punishable by rape? Isn’t the state police responsible for the ever increasing number of rape cases?

© 2014 Nasreen Ghani

Published in Daily Mail and Mail Today
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2645471/India-rape-Living-fear-Indias-rape-province.html