Delay in punishing rapists in India is cause for concern:Desai

Notwithstanding introduction of a stringent law in the wake of outrage over Delhi gang-rape case, a leading Indian author has said delay in punishing rapists in India is a cause for concern.
Launching her latest book 'The Sea of Innocence' at the Nehru Centre, Lady Kishwar Desai, wife of Lord Meghnad Desai, said "there is a kind of cynicism in India on whether rapists are getting the punishment."
She noted it was already six months since the 23-year-old paramedical student was gang-raped in a moving bus in Delhi but there was no indication of punishment of the culprits.
Desai noted that after the Delhi gang-rape case women are coming forward to register cases but are still not sure of seeing the rapists are punished.

The new law - the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 - states that an offender can be sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than 20 years, but which may extend to life, meaning imprisonment for the remainder of the convict's natural life and with a fine.
The book centres round the story of a missing girl, a death in Goa beach and a race against time to uncover the truth.

The novel has been described as "thought-provoking, timely and a thriller."
Author of Witness the Night, winner of the Costa First Novel Award, 56-year-old Desai said, "Rapes and sexual assaults are happening everywhere in the world."

Though she was planning to write the book for the last three years, the work progressed fast after the gang rape of the medical student in Delhi.
"Why this is happening, why there is no sense of justice and what sort of society we are living are the questions that confronted her most," she said.
"I started the novel from the point of despair" but always wondered whether "we can make a difference," she said.
Describing it as a "crime-thriller", Desai said "I wanted to put an emotional angle into the story.