Women empowerment need of the hour: Subramanian Swamy

Insisting that training in certain martial arts be made a part of school curriculums, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday said there was a need to ensure that women are empowered to such a point that they can be sure of their safety.

"I think the question now is no more what happened that day but how to ensure that women are empowered to such a point that they can be sure that they'll be safe and I think being trained in certain martial arts should be part of the curriculum in the schools ," Swamy told ANI.

Two years after the December 16 gang rape that shook the country and led to an amendment in laws, Swamy added that perpetrators of such horrible crimes should live the rest of their lives in such a way they can never repeat such a crime.

"I don't want the death penalty because that is too much of a relief for them but these men should live the rest of their lives in such a way they can never conduct physically a rape," he said.

On December 16, 2012 a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was brutally gang raped by six men, including a juvenile, in a bus. The woman later succumbed to grave intestinal injuries at a Singapore hospital, where she had been airlifted for specialized treatment.

The four adults accused in the case were awarded death penalty on September 13, 2013 with the Delhi High Court upholding the death penalty in March 2014.

The case is currently with the Supreme Court after the convicts appealed against the judgement.