New Delhi: The gang-rape and murder of a veterinary doctor (“Disha”) in Hyderabad reverberated in both Houses of Parliament on Monday with Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan going to the extent of demanding that the accused be lynched.
“These types of people need to be brought out in public and lynched,” Ms Bachchan said. “I think it is time. The people want the government to give a proper and definite answer.”
She led a chorus of angry voices in the Rajya Sabha over the horrific rape and murder. “I don’t know how many times I’ve stood and spoken after this kind of crime. I think it is time... whet-her Nirbhaya or Kathua or what happened in Telangana... I think the people now want the government to give a proper and definite answer.”
“What has the government done? How have they tackled it? How has justice been done for the victims? I am not taking names... but shouldn’t the security be held res-ponsible? I feel only one day earlier something similar happened in Tel-angana... why wasn’t this stopped?” she continued.
Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan also demanded that people who failed to protect women and children from such horrific assaults should be “named and shamed”. Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu also suggested a rethink on allowing convicts in heinous crimes to submit mercy appeals.
“What happens even after punishment is given,” he asked. “We all are witness. Appeal, mercy (petition)...Can anybody think of having mercy on such people?”
“We should really think about a change in the legal system, in our judicial system,” he said after MPs expressed outrage over the rising incidents of crime against women.
Mr Naidu said crime against women was a “societal disease” and there are lacunae in the system, both legal as well as in policing. “This kind of violation of dignity of women cannot go on unchallenged. It should be nipped in the bud,” he said. The Chairman also suggested photographs of the guilty should be published so that there is social stigma and fear.
While the Chairman described the incident as a disgrace to humanity, Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said society will have to tackle this problem at its root. The guilty should be given stringent punishment without any discrimination of religion or caste, he said.
Similar voices were raised in the Lok Sabha.
Congress MP from Telangana Uttam Reddy described the Telangana home minister’s comment, that the victim should have contacted police and not her family, as extremely insensitive.
He claimed that the family had to walk to two or three police stations before a case was registered. “If the first police station would have registered a case and started investigation then the life of the victim would have definitely been saved,” he said. He also blamed the indiscriminate sale of liquor in the state for the increase in crime rate and said demanded that a fast-track court give a quick verdict and hang the accused.
TRS MP Kotha Prabhakar Reddy termed the incident as shameful and said: “We need to bring an act to curb such incidents”. DMK’s T.R. Baalu also raised the issue of the sexual assault of a schoolgirl in Coimbatore.
Those involved in the crime should be punished, Mr Baalu said, adding the government should come forward and ensure time-bound action. Intervening on behalf of the government, defence minister Rajnath Singh said the government was ready for a discussion in the Lok Sabha on the issue of crime against women and willing to explore stringent provisions in laws to check incidents like the Hyderabad rape and murder case.
