In a matter of utmost shame, after the heinous rape and murder of the 27 –year-old veterinarian doctor in Hyderabad, news of the alleged rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl in Karnataka has emerged.
The horrifying incident of child sexual abuse and murder surfaced in Karnataka’s Kalaburgi on Monday evening when the police found the body of an 8-year-old girl near a storm water drain which was found after a search operation since the girl had gone missing.
The Kalaburgi police have arrested a 35-year-old man from the same village in connection with the incident. The girl who was absent from school on Monday morning, was seen with the man, Yellappa, by some villagers. He had allegedly gone to the government school where she studies in grade 2 and lured her by offering to buy her a chocolate. After the girl did not return home at 4.30 pm as usual, her worried parents rushed to school to enquire about their daughter only to be informed that she hadn’t come to school. The teachers thought she had taken the day off.
The parents then rushed to Sulepet police station where they filed a missing persons report. A team of six police officers was formed to look for her and the parents too formed a search party along with the residents of the village. At around 7.30 PM, the residents found a dress near a plot next to the storm water drain, which looked like it belonged to a little girl. They spotted the body in the canal of the Mullamari irrigation project located behind the Anganwadi centre in the village.
The police told The News Minute that the girl’s throat had been slit and she was stabbed multiple times. “We found a pair of men’s underwear near the girl’s body. When we found Yellappa, he was near the village square. His clothes were bloody and he was drunk. He was drunk when he abducted the girl. We took him into custody and questioned him,” Sulepet Police told TNM.
According to reports by TNM, Yellappa confessed to sexually assaulting and then murdering the girl. “When we arrested him, he kept saying that she did not listen to him. He was incoherent. After he became sober, we questioned him once more and he confessed to sexually assaulting and killing the girl,” the police added.
Kalaburagi Superintendent of Police Lada Martin Marbaniang confirmed the incident to IndianExpress.com and said, “A case has been registered on Monday and we are investigating.”He also said that the medical examination would confirm the details including the cause of death, but they had booked Yellappa for rape and murder and their investigation was oriented towards the same as the girl was found partially disrobed with marks of strangulation on her body.
The Sulepet police have booked Yellappa under Sections 302 (murder), 376 (rape) and sections 3(b)(2) (penetrative sexual assault) and 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of the POCSO Act.
According to a report by the Economic Times, the Union government has proposed to set up a total of 1.023 fast-track special courts to speed-up trials of over 1.66 lakh pending cases of crime against women and children across the nation. These courts are supposed to give verdicts to at least 165 cases per year. Out of the 1,023, 389 courts are to exclusively handle cases registered under the POCSO Act.
The Department of Justice had earmarked a total budget of Rs. 767.25 crore for the same and Rs. 474 crore for one year would be given by the Centre from the Nirbhaya Fund which was created by the Centre in 2013 after the monstrous rape and murder of a student in Delhi.
However, it has come to light that the Nirbhaya Fund that has a corpus of Rs. 10 billion, has been utilized by only 4 out of the 12 states that were granted funds. What are the states doing with the money if not utilizing it for what it was meant?
According to the last statistics in 2016, over 90,000 cases registered under the POCSO Act were pending trial. 36,022 cases had been registered in 2016 itself and 15,283 were pending investigation.
The Crime in India 2017 report by the National Crime Records Bureau in October 2019, show that violence against women has risen by 83% since 2007. It mentioned that 43.2% of rape survivors were minors, under the age of 18.
If one checks news reports, there are more than 6 cases in November alone were minors were raped all over the country. Just this week, we reported of how a rape bid on a 4year-old by a 35 year-old man was thwarted in Nagpur. The Justice Verma Committee Report 2013 had made some recommendations to make public spaces safe for women, even those have not been completely implemented.
On paper, everything has been listed out elaborately. On the ground, there has been no implementation made and the proof is for everyone to see. Public outrage will only do so much, but whom does the onus really lie on?
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