Verma Committee to decide on anti-rape law: Digvivay Singh

"Soon after the rape occurred, all the six accused involved were arrested and sent to jail," he told reporters at the Raj Bhoj International Airport.

He said that soon after the incident, a committee headed by retired Chief Justice of India, J S Verma was set up to look into all aspects of a new law to deal with rapes.

Asked if he himself was in favour of giving capital punishment to rapists, he said that the matter should be left to the Verma Committee to decide.

He said that the Supreme Court had upheld that names of rape victims should not be made public, when he was told that Union HRD Minister Shashi Tharoor had demanded that the name of the rape victim should be made public and a new rape law should be named after her.

He said that if family members of the victim wanted her name to be made public, then the whole matter should be considered thoughtfully. Initially, the case was related only to rape but after the girl died, it is now a murder case and therefore, her name could be made public, he said.

He said that he had heard people on television demanding that Congress President Sonia Gandhi or Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should themselves hang the rapists. People making such demands should realise that neither Sonia nor the PM had the power to hang anyone in this country.

"We have no faith in the present Lokayukta in Madhya Pradesh. We feel that he cannot take any action either against Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan or other ministers involved in corruption cases," he said.

He said that he was of this view because of the circumstances under which the State Lokayukta was appointed.