Remembering the brutality, three years on

It has been three years since the December 16, 2012 gang-rape case. No one can forget this day when the brutal gang-rape and murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy student took place in a moving bus by six men in the country capital.
 
The victim passed away a few days after the incident, and her family and the protestors have nothing but justice to yearn for.

Presently, the juvenile is scheduled to be released later this month. As of the rest of the convicts, the Supreme Court has not yet handed down its verdict.

While some want all the accused to be hanged, others feel immense anger on the juvenile to be released and some others remain indifferent to the judgement.

“It would be really wrong if the juvenile is released,” says Mamta Sharma, former chairperson of the National Commission for Women.

“Our government made the fast track courts which have been of no use to the victim. The judges should have given a timely judgement. I think this is all because of the lack of sensitivity,” she adds.

“I don’t think anyone is born rapist or is violent since birth. We still live in times when we ask our daughters only to reach home on time in the evening. We tell our boys that they cannot cry. They grow in a way where being shameless and peeing in public doesn’t bother them. Our patriarchal society tends to dehumanise these boys and men,” says Kamla Bhasin, a social scientist.

Bhasin, as a human rights defender is “totally against capital punishment” for those accused in the December 16 gang-rape.

“I feel that human beings can learn. They can repent in jail. But I don’t think that extremely strict laws are the only way. If capital punishments and death sentences would have been effective, rapes and murders would have stopped till now,” she says.

Recalling the manner in which the accused gang-raped the victim, she adds, “Those men were not human at all. They came from the poorest sections of the society and had no expectations from the society. They just wanted to overpower someone. The rape was a crime of power and hate.” It all comes down to the patriarchal mindset, according to Bhasin. “Where domestic violence and female infanticide still prevail in the country, women continue to be considered “lowly” in the eyes of the men.”

“When you speak of judgement and hanging of the accused in this case, what about the 35 million girls who have been killed? Who takes their responsibility? In the case, the whole society needs to be hanged. These are definitely some issues which need to be dealt with depth at the very primarily level,” Bhasin tells Metrolife.When we, the members of the society outnumber the rapists, what stops us from fighting for justice for the victims? The question remains unanswered.