RG Kar death case: ‘Initiate stringent Central Act to prevent atrocities against women’

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray on Friday wrote to the Union Home minister Amit Shah urging him to initiate enacting a stringent comprehensive Central Act to prevent atrocities against women thereby ensure their safety in every public and private places ‘be it hospitals, nursing homes, educational institutions’.

His letter comes in the backdrop of an alleged rape and murder incident that occurred in RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. Ray also took part in a protest in Kolkata in solidarity of the midnight protest organised by women late on Wednesday day.

“…ensure their safety in every public and private place, including, but not limited to, hospitals, nursing homes, educational institutions, asylums, shopping malls, public transport, trains, govt-semi govt- private workplaces and other establishments by providing women armed guards, officers, CCTV installations in every possible nook and corner of the country. Failure to comply with this basic preventing measure must entail a punishment for a minimum period of 5 years imprisonment,” reads the letter.

Any complaint for incidents of sexual harassment, rape, rape with murder, shall be statutorily recorded immediately after the incident and must be immediately reported to the nearest police station, failing which the concerned police official/other authorities must be suspended and proceeded against criminally, Ray said in his letter. He also pointed out that proceedings in every such case against the negligent/delinquent must commence forthwith for the removal from service and must entail a jail term for a minimum period of 5 years.

He further stated in his letter: “A minimum of 3 fast track courts shall be established in every district of India to try these offences, which shall conclude within a maximum period of 6 months without giving more than 2 adjournments for any genuine reason to the satisfaction of the court; if the investigating agency fails to arrest the culprits.”