New Delhi: On a cold, rainy Sunday night, two policemen in khaki uniforms and fluorescent yellow jackets stand among commuters at a bus shelter in the Indian capital, occasionally stepping out to stop passing buses and climbing on board to conduct inspections.
A white police car halts to check in with the men stationed at the bus stop. Some minutes after, two other constables walk past on their night patrol which they say runs from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. daily.
The security at this infamous bus stand in Delhi`s Munirka district is not surprising. It was here on December 16, 2012 that a 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist boarded an unregistered bus and was fatally gang raped in a case that led to nationwide protests and forced authorities to tighten laws on sex crimes.
But two years on, police attention to this particular bus stand remains an exception rather than a rule, say women commuters and activists, as government pledges on everything from better street lighting and public transport to more policing remain unfulfilled.
A poll published by newspaper on Tuesday, the anniversary of the Delhi gang rape, said 90 percent of 2,557 women surveyed did not see any improvements in safety. The same survey found 86 percent of respondents avoided going out alone after dark.
Police and government officials argue that a host of measures have been introduced to improve safety, but add that violence against women is a far more deep-rooted problem which cannot be solved in just two years. We have taken a whole range of steps to improve security for women over the last two years,” said Rajan Bhagat, spokesperson for Delhi police. “It`s not true to say nothing has changed … it is a long process.”
Four men were found guilty of the rape of a woman on a bus in the Indian capital and her murder, closing a chapter on a crime Four men were found guilty on Tuesday of the rape of a woman on a bus in the Indian capital and her murder, closing a chapter on a crime that triggered protests and soul-searching about the treatment of women in India.
The verdict capped a seven-month trial, often held behind closed doors, that was punctuated dramatically by a fifth defendant hanging himself in his jail cell. Outside the court, the case cemented India’s reputation as unsafe for women, even after parliament passed new laws against sexual crimes.
Nirbhaya’s case resonated with thousands of urban Indians who took to the streets in fury after the attack. Her path through education onto the first rungs of middle-class life seemed to epitomize the aspirations of millions of young women in the world’s second most populous nation.
Bus cleaner Akshay Kumar Singh, gym instructor Vinay Sharma, fruit-seller Pawan Gupta, and unemployed Mukesh Singh were found guilty of luring the woman and a male friend onto the bus on the night of Dec. 16 as the pair returned home from watching a movie at a shopping mall in south Delhi.
They beat the friend into submission, held down the woman and repeatedly raped her. They also penetrated the woman repeatedly with an iron rod, causing severe internal injuries that led to her death two weeks later. As a rape victim, the woman cannot be identified under Indian law.
Dozens of protesters gathered outside the courtroom Tuesday, calling the case a wake-up call for India and demanding the death penalty for the men
Every girl at any age experiences this _ harassment or rape. We don’t feel safe,” said law school graduate Rapia Pathania. “That’s why we’re here. We want this case to be an example for every other case that has been filed and will be filed.”
Facing public protests and political pressure, the government reformed some of its antiquated laws on sexual violence, creating fast-track courts to avoid the painfully long rape trials that can easily last over a decade. The trial of the four men, which took about seven months, is astonishingly fast by Indian standards.
Bureau Report
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