‘Time govt. acted tough on sex crimes’

The Madras High Court on Tuesday impressed upon the need for the Centre as well as the State government to take urgent measures against the spurt in sexual offences against women and girl children, especially in the wake of the Kathua rape and the recent Aruppukottai incident wherein a woman faculty member of an arts college has been accused of attempting to traffic four students.

Justice N. Kirubakaran said: “Every time a major incident takes place, there is a knee-jerk reaction from the government. Thereafter, nobody bothers about these issues until another such incident happens. People have started to comment that Delhi has become the rape capital of the country though actually such things are happening in every State. Even kids are not being spared from being subjected to such offences.” He made the observations while hearing a bail petition filed in the Madurai Bench of the High Court. The petition had been filed by two youngsters, Andrews and Prabhu, who had been booked by the Kudankulam police in Tirunelveli district last year. The youth were charged with the offence of raping a mentally challenged elderly woman and then stoning her to death.

On December 25, 2017, the judge had posed a set of 25 questions to the Centre, the State government as well as DGP. Answering those questions on Tuesday, the Home Secretary and the DGP said lack of sex education, parental care, moral education, association with bad people, easy availability of pornography and the increasing number of drunkards were the reasons for the spurt in sex crimes.