Activists express outrage over rape becoming 'pastime'

Expressing outrage over rape becoming a "pastime", legal experts and activists here on Thursday called for overhauling the patriarchal Indian society where a woman is considered an object.

Debating on if rape should be punished with death, West Bengal Commission for Women chairperson Sunanda Mukherjee advocated capital punishment while rights activists Sujato Bhadra opposed it, questioning effectiveness of death penalty as deterrence.

"A rape is a rape, why should we wait for the barbarics to rip apart her private parts or insert an iron rod inside her to invoke the punishment. Unless punished stringently irrespective of the nature, rape cannot be prevented," said Mukherjee.

"Rape is not about sex, it is a manifestation of the society's urge to dominate a woman who is considered only as an object. What can be more outrageous that rape has now become a pastime, a fun," said Mukherjee, who also found faults with the legal system where a rape survivor has to go through a lot of harassment to get justice.

However, Bhadra opposed death penalty and called for overhauling the societal norms.

"The Nirbhaya case created outrage across the country and her rapists have been awarded death penalty. But have rapes stopped happening since then? You can hang an individual, but what when the state uses rape as a weapon to stifle the dissident, to counter insurgency," asked Bhadra.

"There are numerous cases of the armed forces resorting to rape. Are we ready to hang our jawans? Death penalty is not the answer. It's the society that needs to changed where a woman is always considered an object to be enjoyed," added Bhadra.

However, former Allahabad High Court chief justice Shyamal Sen said the Indian legal system has taken a balanced approached by adopting the doctrine of "rarest of rare" case while awarding death sentence.

"A lot of countries have withdrawn death penalty from their penal laws and the consensus is growing for its revocation across the world. However, our legal system has created a perfect balance by adopting the rarest of rare case approach," said Sen.

"The biggest concern that the society has now is that rape has become a pastime. Earlier, we used to hardly hear news of a rape, but now it is happening every time, every where. Have we become so depraved as a society," asked Sen.