Perpetrators of Unnao, Kathua rape incidents shouldn't be 'shielded, glorified': PFI

Terming the Kathua and Unnao rape incidents as "violent acts to subjugate, humiliate and instill fear", the Population Foundation of India (PFI) has asked the government to ensure that the perpetrators are neither "shielded nor glorified".

PFI is a body advocating for effective formulation of gender sensitive population.

Executive Chairperson, PFI, Poonam Muttreja, has demanded that the government act to ensure women in the country do not feel "insecure" and "unsafe".

In Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua, an eight-year-old girl was abducted, raped and killed, while a minor girl in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district has alleged that she was raped by BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar and her father was killed in police custody after he refused to withdraw the FIR.

"What happened in Kathua and Unnao are violent acts to subjugate, humiliate and instill fear. The government should condemn such atrocities, and ensure that the perpetrators are neither shielded nor glorified.

"Justice has to be delivered before it is too late, or else we will only have an escalation of such acts of violence. We owe it to the victims of Kathua and Unnao, and to every girl and woman of our country," Muttreja said.

The PFI said it has been running a year-long campaign 'Bas Ab Bahut Hogaya' (enough is enough) to end violence against girls and women along with actor Farhan Akhtar's initiative MARD and noted film-maker Feroz Abbas Khan.

Muttreja along with Akhtar also co-wrote a letter recently decrying the rapes and demanding action.

PFI said the rapes in Kathua and Unnao were an ugly reminder of how women safety is still a critical issue and not a top priority in the country.

The last time India reverberated with cries to make the country safer was when 'Nirbhaya' was gang-raped in the national capital in 2012, it said in a statement.

Nirbhaya (the fearless) was a 23-year-old paramedic student who was brutally gangraped on a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012, and a fortnight later, on December 29, she succumbed in a Singapore hospital.