Delhi gang-rape juvenile convict may be sent to 'after-care' facility

The youngest convict in the horrifying December 16 gang-rape of a physiotherapy student is likely to be sent to an “after-care facility.”

Officials in the Women and Child Development department said this would ensure that the juvenile is kept under watch for his own safety.

At present, the juvenile is lodged at a government-run special home for boys, Place of Safety, in north Delhi’s Majnu Ka Tila. He is expected to be shifted to an ‘after care home for boys’ by December 22 when his term expires. Officials with the Women and Child Development department said the Juvenile Justice Board will take the final decision.

“If it (Juvenile Justice Board) thinks that the juvenile is in need for care and protection, it can transfer him to an after-care programme under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000,” said an official requesting anonymity.

“It won’t be the violation of the JJ Act. The Act, however, says that after the completion of the term no juvenile or adult (after he attains 18 years of age) can be kept without his own volition. But the juvenile will be kept under watch for his own good and everything will be done as per the law,” the official told Deccan Herald.

Even Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi had said that the juvenile should be kept under surveillance after his term ends.

Officials, however, are not clear which after-care facility he will be sent to. “There is one government-run after care home for boys in Alipur and there are some facilities run by NGOs for juveniles in conflict with law,” said the official.

“Juveniles as well adults are given formal education in such facilities. They are taught some skills so that they can earn their livelihood,” he added. There are some 17 boys at the ‘after care home for boys’ in Alipur, said an officer. The city government runs an after-care facility for women, Nirmal Chaya.

But the NGOs working with such juveniles say that the government-run after-care programme has been defunct for some time now. So there is a possibility, the juvenile might be handed over to an NGO-run after-care facility.

The juvenile is calm these days  at the special home Place of Safety in Majnu Ka Tila, said a welfare officer. On December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was brutally gang raped by five men and a juvenile in a moving bus in south Delhi Munirka area.