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A 35-year-old man was paraded naked on Sunday evening by people for trying to rape a four-year-old girl at her house in Pardi area of Nagpur in Maharashtra, the Asian Age reported.
The police said that the accused, Jawahar Vaidya, a daily cash collection agent for a co-operative society bank, was thrashed, had his hands tied by a rope and paraded naked on the streets before being handed over to them.
An official told Asian Age, “Vaidya visits the house of the girl every day for collecting cash. Finding the girl alone on Sunday evening, he tried to sexually assault her. Suddenly, mother of the girl returned home and raised an alarm, following which her neighbours rushed to the spot.”
The neighbours, who gathered as the word spread, thrashed Vaidya for his actions. The police has registered a case under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act at the Pardi police station.
The incident has enraged people all over the country, especially when the nation is already seething with anger after the brutal rape and murder of the 26-year-old Hyderabad veterinarian doctor which came to light on Thursday.
According to the data by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2016, the total cases reported under the POCSO act were 36,022, with UP recording 4,954; Maharashtra recording 4,815 and Madhya Pradesh – 4,717. The total percentage of child rape cases stood at 34.4%, i.e. 19765 cases. The conviction rate in these cases stood at 28.2% with 2,230 men convicted.
2452 cases had been reported in Metropolitan cities, out of which 1,258 were pending investigation and 158 cases saw a conviction by the end of 2016.
This year itself, the Union Cabinet approved amendments to strengthen the POCSO Act by including the death penalty for aggravated cases of sexual assaults on children, the Economic Times reported.
The spate of increased incidents in sexual crimes against children and other heinous crimes against women have now driven the public to favour vigilante justice. With fast-track courts not doing their job and cases dragging on for years without credible justice in sight, what is the way to go to stop this evil from spreading even further?
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