India to name and shame rapists
2012-12-27 21:28
New Delhi - The Indian government said on Thursday it
will post the photos, names and addresses of convicted rapists on official
websites to publicly shame them, in a new measure to combat growing crime
against women.
Ratanjit Pratap Narain Singh, India's junior home
minister, said the campaign would begin first in New Delhi, where the brutal
gang-rape of a student on 16 December by six drunken men has sparked nationwide
protests.
"We are planning to start it [the campaign] in
Delhi," Singh told reporters, hours after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
said women were being treated unfairly in India.
"Photographs, names and addresses of the rapists
will be uploaded on the Delhi Police website [delhipolice.nic.in],"
he said.
"We are very serious about dealing with the problem
and taking all possible action as early as possible."
The minister said the government-run National Crime
Records Bureau had been told to prepare a directory of convicted rapists and
upload their photographs and personal details to its official website
(http://ncrb.nic.in) as well.
The announcement came a day after India said it had
launched a judicial probe into the attack on the 23-year-old student who was
airlifted to Singapore from a hospital in New Delhi late on Wednesday.
Doctors in Singapore were battling on Thursday to save
her life following the horrific injuries she sustained.
Her drunken attackers, joyriding in a bus, raped the
student and then assaulted her with an iron bar. The savage gang rape sparked
some of New Delhi's largest mass protests in decades.
India has also promised to toughen laws against rape,
which currently carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
