December 16 is the tenth anniversary of one of the most shocking crimes in India in recent memory.
On this day, in 2012, a 23-year-old physiotherapist was brutally gang-raped and violated in a moving bus in the national capital.
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The victim, who later came to be known as Nirbhaya, died of her injuries after battling for life for nearly two weeks.
The shocking gangrape and her death triggered a wave of anger and protest across the country at a scale unseen before.
Nothing has changed for women
New laws were passed and tall promises were made about improving women’s safety in the country.
But ten years later, the parents of Nirbhaya, who became the faces of the campaign demanding justice for her, feel that not much has changed for the women in the country.
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“In the last 10 years, we do not think anybody except Nirbhaya got justice. No change has come,” Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi told PTI.
Delhi is still unsafe for women
Two minor girls were raped every day last year in the national capital, which was the most unsafe metropolitan city for women across the country, according to NCRB data.
Delhi also recorded 13,892 cases of crimes against women in 2021, a significant surge of more than 40 per cent compared to 2020, when the figure was 9,782, the data showed.
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The police arrested six accused in the case, including one minor.
One of the accused, bus driver Ram Singh, allegedly killed himself in Tihar Jail and the juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.
After a lengthy legal battle, the four other accused, Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Kumar Singh, were hanged in March 2020.
Memories still haunt the family
Devi said that the family is still haunted by the memories of the incident and what their daughter has to suffer before succumbing to injuries.
“People say that time heals everything, but the pain has not gone away. Nobody knows how long will young girls continue to face such situations,” she said.
“I don’t think any change has come. Even today, we are in the same situation as 2012,” Devi said.
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She, however, added that one positive change that has come about after the December 16 incident is that more sexual assault survivors are now speaking out.
Crimes against women reach epidemic proportion: DCW
Delhi Women Commission (DCW) Chief Swati Maliwal, in a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar on Friday, pointed out that crimes against women are still increasing.
“10 years have passed since the gruesome incident and crimes against women and girls are only increasing in the country. Every day, there are six rapes reported in the national capital itself. An 8-month-old baby and a 90-year-old woman have also been raped in Delhi,” the letter reads.
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“The problem of increasing crimes against women and girls has reached an epidemic proportion and governments are failing to take concrete steps to counter it. Even the Nirbahya Fund that was set up for providing relief and rehabilitation for women and girls survivors of sexual assault has been reduced substantially. Governments have failed to create deterrence in the minds of people against crimes against women and girls,” she said.
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