Kolkata: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav Friday while demanding death punishment for the perpetrators of the Delhi gang-rape and murder, mentioned the name of the victim.
"I went to meet the family of the victim in Ballia (Uttar Pradesh) and the father related how the young girl was subjected to barbarism. He revealed his daughter's name to me," said Lalu before mentioning the name of the victim to the audience.
"So long as a rape victim is alive you cannot mention her name, but in this case she is no more," added Prasad while addressing an interactive programme on women's empowerment organised by the FICCI Ladies Organisation here.
Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar this month had opined that the law was not in favour of revealing the identity of the victim.
Citing examples of Arab countries where criminals are stoned to death, Lalu Prasad demanded the culprits should be hanged and called for stronger laws and stringent punishment for rape and other crimes against women.
"Our party has always been advocating for punishment for rapists and in the next session of parliament we will put pressure on the government to amend the respective laws and provide death for rape," he said.
"If Raavan can be killed for abducting Sita, then why can't these inhumans be hanged. Unless there are stringent punishment we cannot prevent crime against women," Lalu Prasad said.
He also called for stirring up a nationwide mass movement to make the people aware about women rights.
A 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist was brutally raped by six men in a moving bus in south Delhi Dec 16. She died Dec 29 in a Singapore hospital where she was airlifted for specialised treatment.
Gang-rape most horrific case: Delhi Police commissioner
The Dec 16 Delhi gang-rape of a young woman was the most horrifying case in the history of Delhi Police, Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar said here Friday.
"This (Delhi gang-rape) was the most horrifying case in the history of Delhi Police. This year the focus of Delhi Police will be entirely on the safety of women," he said at the Annual Press Conference of Delhi Police.
SC moved for mental test of juvenile accused
The Supreme Court Friday issued notice to the central government on a petition seeking that the juvenile accused in Delhi gang-rape case be kept in special custody if he was a psychopath and a threat to society and women.
A bench of Justice K.S.Radhakrishnan and Justice Dipak Misra issued notice on the plea contending that the heinous act of the juvenile accused points to wide possibility that he was psychologically an abnormal person.
The petitioner - Delhi-based Shilpa Arora Sharma - has pleaded for the appointment of a panel of national and international criminal psychologists to examine the juvenile to determine whether he was psychologically abnormal and a threat to society and women if allowed to be free.
It sought that if the juvenile accused is found to be so, he should not be released and kept in a place of strict detention as such a person poses grave danger to society and especially women.
The petitioner has also urged the court to strike down Section 16 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of children) Act, 2000, under which the juvenile accused would get released without punishment despite most "grisly act" committed by him.
This provision of the Juvenile Act, the petition said, was "irrational, unreasonable" and not based on the "fundamental principle of public policy" and thus should be declared null and void as it was in conflict with Article 21 of the constitution.
