Amritsar, Punjab (January 08, 2012):
‘Sikh Youth of Punjab’ (SYP) has suggested that the criminal law be
amended to award the maximum punishment of full life imprisonment
without parole to rapists.
Sikh Youth of Punjab leadership addressing media at Amritsar (File Photo)
Party head Ranbir Singh has sent
suggestions to the Justice J.S. Verma Commission, which was set up to
study stringent laws for preventing crimes against women after the
gang-rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi in December last.
Notably, SYP is the youth wing of the Dal Khalsa.
He said, “The law must be amended in
such a way that the rape accused must be directed to undergo the maximum
sentence for whole life till death. Those culprits who are involved in
the brutal rape cases must be put in the condemned cell for the whole
period of life.”
Pertinently, the gang rape has evoked strong reactions from all quarters of society. Many want the accused hanged.
In his suggestions, he said: “The death
sentence is not deterrent to any crime. Most of the countries have
abolished it, so India should also follow the suit. However, he said,
some strict conditions have to be imposed in life sentence itself:
parole and commutation of the sentence should not be granted to the
accused sentenced to life imprisonment”.
In his letter to jurists, SYP leader
harped on a ‘cultural sanction’ of rape in India. “The state in order to
teach a lesson to a population seeking self-determination, allowed its
security forces, which enjoys impunity, to use rape as a ‘tool’ against
them and also against tribals considered pro-Naxal sympathizers.
Reminding the dishonouring of hundreds
of Sikh women by frenzied mobs during the Nov 1984 genocide, he
recommended the commission and through it to Government of India to
evolve mechanism to end this cultural sanction of rape and bring members
of the security forces under the purview of anti-rape law.
He also suggested that vulgarity in
songs and movies that instigates and provokes violence and sexual abuse
against women must be checked and curtailed.
