Though Indian politicians have come to excel in expressing outrage against sexual violence, they’ve done little to equip the criminal justice system to address it. There has never been a national audit of the state of police preparedness to investigate sexual violence. What’s there is a steady drip of damning revelations.
Twelve years after the rape-murder of a physiotherapist in New Delhi catalysed massive protests, it’s clear the criminal justice system is depressingly under-resourced. Ludhiana hospitals have been found lacking simple, cheap evidence-collection kits; hundreds of trials are held up in Haryana because there are no DNA testing sets available. Local police have often sent samples to laboratories 10 days or more after their collection, sometimes rendering them useless. Forensic laboratories are hopelessly backed up, to the growing frustration of judges.
From its beginnings in the mid-19th century, modern police largely ignored violence against Indian women by Indian men, seeing it as a matter that involved custom and the family rather than the state. “
by Pravin Swami
21/08/2024