Woman Safety and Criminal Law (amended) Act 2012

Email sent on 28-Dec-2012

Dear PM,

We are all ashamed by the recent gang rape incident in the capital. While some people are demanding death penalty for the rapist I believe capital punishment is no deterrent to any crime. Prevention and speedy prosecution with the help of technology like lie detector, brain mapping are far more effective deterrent. When we hang or send a criminal behind bar we are safe till another criminal takes his place. It is important to find root cause of men’s tendency to assault women. This tendency is prevalent among all classes in the society – rich or poor, young or old, bearer or CEO. The problem of rape, eve teasing, and sexual assault needs to be dealt at legal and as well as socio-economic level. I don’t believe woman provokes men to rape her. Rape is a male disease which needs to be treated at an early stage. Environment in which we grow up plays a major role how a man treats a woman. My definitive proposals to curb this nuisance and my comments on the criminal law bill 2012 are as follows

Woman Safety

1. A massive campaign is required to teach men how to behave with women at school, college and work place. Consequence of misbehavior, assault, rape must be made known to all men in no uncertain term.

2. A separate court in each district to deal with violence against women must be created. 

3. Prosecution should be completed in 4 months max using lie detector and brain mapping. 

4. Women must be protected like VVIP.  Effective police patrolling is key to women safety on the road.

5. There must be CCTV on buses, trains, all kinds of public transport, bus stops, railway stations, public places. These CCTVs must be monitored remotely 24X7.

6. In Sydney there are night safe compartments in each local train after 7pm that are patrolled by security guards constantly. We can have similar bus and trains all over India.

7. Every woman should carry a camera mobile with 'Eye Watch' application installed in it. I have used it. It works.

8. Women must be trained on self defense.

9. Should women carry a defensive gun which can inject tear water?

10. Collecting evidence and finding witnesses on sexual assault cases are extremely difficult and time consuming. If either victim or accused wants to testify under lie detector, brain mapping, it should be allowed and verdict may be delivered on the basis of polygraph report only.

11. There are thousands of sexual assault cases pending with the court all over India. Verdict should be delivered in all such cases in next 12 months with the help of sitting and retired judges and use of technology. 

Criminal Law (amended) Act 2012

1. Minimum punishment under section 376 should be 20 years of imprisonment and fine upto 75% of annual income.

2. Section 376A should be omitted. Any sexual assault on wife who is living separately under decree should be treated as same grievous offence as when committed on any other women.

3. Human trafficking should also be treated as sexual assault. Minimum imprisonment should be 20 years.

4. Section 376B is open to interpretation. It is very difficult to prove who seduced whom? A rich man can seduce a poor young girl with a promise of marriage and have sex with her. This should be treated as sexual assault and 376 must be applied. In Bollywood, established actors/directors/producers seduce aspirant actress or item girls to exploit sexually. Such seduction may be booked under section 376B

5. This law does not talk about molestation which is different from sexual assault.

6. To establish charges under section 509 (page 12), prosecution must compulsorily rely on lie detector.

7. Any police officer refusing to take FIR for sexual assault should be treated as rapist and section 376 must be applied.

8. There must be a facility to enter incidents of sexual assault through internet without coming to police station and police officer must come to victim’s house within 6 hours to record her statement.

9. All fines should be percentage of annual income – higher the income bigger the fine.

10. Statement of the victim must be at least audio-recorded and uploaded to central server within 2 hours so that it cannot be tampered with.

11. Section 144A and 146 of the evidence act (page 8) is contentious. Part time sex worker can bring sexual assault charge against her client to blackmail. Judge cannot presume anything. Also quality of consent should be a matter of consideration. To know whether consent was given, both accused and victim must be put to lie detector.

12. All human traffickers should be treated as rapist and section 376 must be applied.

Thanks

Satyaki

Email sent to Justice Verma on 31-Dec-12
Respected Justice Verma,

I sent the above email to our honorable Prime Minister, President and other social political leaders. I would like to add few more points.

1. A detailed study on socio-economic environment rapist grew up is very much required to understand what prompted them to assault women. 

2. Our youth in the age group of 18 to 24 are most vulnerable to a. alcohol, b. free pornography available in the internet, c. easily available cheap part time sex worker within close vicinity of their house. All such things destroy innocence of the mind and make them violent and immoral. Selling of alcohol in the shops must be banned. Alcohol can only be sold and consumed in 3 star and above hotels in limited quantity. No one will be allowed to leave the hotel until the alcohol level in the body falls below safe limit. We must crackdown on the trade of prostitution and pornography and rehabilitate sex worker.

3. Children of politically powerful or rich people think that law cannot touch them. They believe that their parent will rescue them if caught in sexual assault charges.

4. Every year all the people between age group 16 to 30 must be told in one to one session about do's and don'ts by elected representatives, teachers, local elderly people. They should also be made aware consequence of breaking law. 

5. Domestic violence hampers proper upbringing of the children. Such children are more likely to commit crime against women than others. So, prevention of domestic violence is an important factor to curb violence against women.

6. We need to draw Laxman Rekha on Disco culture. Healthy dancing and singing against high pitched music is welcome. But when men and women become drunk, wild and get physically intimate in Discotheque, that is where one started crossing the line. Such men develop a tendency to take women for granted on the road.

7. Any person who has sexual assault charge register against him, not just FIR, cannot contest any election - LokSabha, BidhanSabha, Panchyat and sports body election.

8. I think we have to spend more money on prevention of sexual assault on women than prosecution after assault happened.

Thanks

Satyaki

+91 98369 44557

Followup email sent to Justice Verma on 7-Jan-13

Few more points I would like to add

1. Car pool is a very common way of transporting children to school and back home. However there is no background check of the driver either by school authority or guardians or owner of the car. Many times it happens that youngest girl is the last to get off after travelling 15 to 30 minutes alone with the driver. CCTV, screaming recognition device and GPS must be installed in all such pool cars and automatic alert to be sent to police station if any distress signals comes or driver deviates prescribed paths or any of the devices are switched off. Similar devices must be fitted in all school buses, public buses, train compartments.

2. Bus driver must be isolated from passengers so that he can steer the bus to nearest police station during emergency. 

3. All passenger vehicle must be fitted with Dazzler, non lethal directed energy laser weapon which causes immediate immobility through extreme physical imbalance like nausea and disorientation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzler_(weapon) ). In the event of any attack driver can use this gun to incapacitate the culprit .

4. Government should waive VAT on CCTV products and give tax rebate for buying CCTV worth Rs 10,000 or less for 2 years.

5. Police must ensure that no car is having tainted glass

6. Domestic help, tea garden laborers and women/children working in construction industry are most vulnerable to exploitation. Government must proactively try to listen to their story of abuse if happened and prosecute those responsible.

 Thanks

Satyaki

+91 98369 44557