It’s been four years of the brutal December 16, 2012, gang-rape of a physiotherapy student that shook the entire country and brought extensive shame to India. As the inhuman incident attracted negative publicity, the government made several promises to make the national capital as well as the country a safer place for women.
A separate fund was introduced under the name of India’s daughter Nirbhaya with a purpose to reform the saddening state of the national capital that is also known as a rape capital. But going by the records, it can be said that the situation have just worsened instead of reforming.
The administration had miserably failed to keep its promises.
According to an analysis of the reform process that was to make women in India’s capital safer, the government miserably failed to stop the crime. In fact, the crime has tripled since the brutal gang rape of 2012, as per the reports.
Government has taken initiative for instance; one important change to the law recommended by the Verma Commission was to increase the number of female officers to record crimes against women and handle their statements. So, the female constabulary of the Delhi police grew from 3,572 in 2011 to 4,582 in 2015.
But then, women are still less than 9 per cent of the Delhi Police and 6.4 per cent of the police force nationwide, as per the 2015 BPRD data.
Although the police officers said there has been progress, the training on “gender-sensitivity” has been slow. Many gender-sensitisation programmes were introduced to reform the situation but of no use.
Precisely, the incidents of rape in Delhi have steadily augmented since the incident of Dec 16. It rose from 706 in 2012 to 2199 in 2016.
Police said the figure increased as more women are coming forward to lodge complaints after the 2012 incident. But, simultaneously, the conviction rate for rape has also dropped considerably.
The police had secured a 49.25% conviction in rape cases in 2012 that fell to 35.69% in 2013 and 34.5% in 2014.
Rapes in Delhi have augmented 200 per cent since 2012. A comparison of Delhi police reports from 2014 and 2015 found a rise in the rape cases withdrawn from 81 to 104. This is clearly indicating a lack of faith in the criminal-justice system.
Apart from that other crimes against women also rose 50 per cent over the same period, taking the count from 208 to 1498, as per Delhi Police data.
“Women help desks are generally manned by new recruits, rarely having training on legal and social aspects,” Shikha Chibber, a New Delhi-based human rights lawyer told IndiaSpend.
