Shri Pranab
Mukherjee
President of India
Rashtrapati Bhawan
Dear Rashtrapatiji,
We, representatives of women’s organizations with
membership of lakhs of women all over the country meet you to urge you to use
our good offices to make the Government accept and identify accountability at
different levels for the increasing crimes against women. In the context of the brutal gang rape of a
young 23 year old woman in a moving bus in the Capital, the question arises as
to who is to be held responsible for the increasing crime graph against women
and children in the capital of this country and what action is to be taken
against them.
We are part of the ongoing protests in this city to
express our outrage at this crime. We know that by and large the protests are
peaceful yet the police have used batons, tear gas shells and vigilance against
the protesters. We ask you to intervene to get the Government to stop these
brutal police actions and to come out with concerte measures to secure women’s
safety and well being in public places.
We deeply regret that the statements from the Honourable
Prime Minister and Home Minister have not addressed the issues in any
comprehensive or holistic manner. There are immediate stepsas also long term monitoring
measures which require to be taken. Our suggestions include;
(1) Action against top police officials in Delhi including
the Police Commissioner who have willfully failed to implement the guidelines
and directions set out for security in the capital for women decided earlier by
the Home Ministry (attached) as also the
violation of repeated assurances given to women’s organizations on these
issues. There must be standard operating procedures for any crime against women
which include immediate registration of FIR and a speedy time bound
investigation and filing of case before the court. Any police official
violating the standard operating procedures should be punished. Senior police
officials must be mandated to monitor the security measures as well as
implementation of standard operating procedures.
(2) There are several Bills pending with the Government
regarding sexual assault on women. The Government has diluted the
recommendations of women’s organizations on amendments to the IPC and Crpc in the
draft placed before parliament. These include amendments for rape clauses,
including marital rape, sexual harassment, stripping, stalking and other types
of sexual assault. The suggestion for our amendments has been to make the punishment more stringent and the judicial
processes time bound. At present the system creates and recreates injustices at
every stage. This must be stopped.
(3) All pending cases of sexual assault, over one lakh at
present, must be transferred to fast track courts.
(4) Punishment to those providing social and political
protection to the accused.
We request you to act urgently to intervene with the
Government on these issues.
Yours sincerely
Brinda Karat
(Kirti Singh), (Sehba Farooqui) --All India
(Beena Jain) -- All India
(Dr. Indu Agnihotri) -- Centre for Women’s Development Studies
(Jyotsna Chatterjee) -- Joint Women’s Programme
(Dr. Mohini Giri) – Ms. Srirupa Mitra Choudhary -- Guild of Service
(Vimal Thorat) -- All India
(Annie Raja) -- National Federation Of Indian Women
(Sheeba Varghese) -- Young Women’s Christian Association of India
(Purnima) – Nirantar
(Sunita Dhar), (Vrinda Grover) –
Jagori
Annexure
Guidelines include:
Mapping of areas prone to increased cases of sexual
violence against women in the city, to ensure proper security measures; proper street lighting and lighting of all
public places such as women’s toilets in
resettlement colonies and crowded areas; action against all bus, truck and taxi
owners who ply vehicles with tinted glasses; verification of antecedents of all
bus owners who are to be held accountable for their employees; identification
of drivers and conductors and other employees to
be prominently displayed.
No comments:
Post a Comment