Reacting sharply to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has expressed concern over increasing incidents of rape in India, the Union Women and Child Development Ministry has pointed out that the state has been provided many fast-track courts for the cases of rape, but many of them are reported to be non-operative.
I had reported on 10 January that Banerjee had written to Modi, asking for more stringent central legislation for rapists and the setting up of fast-track special courts for speedy justice. She had drawn the correlation of pointing to at least 90 cases of rape being reported daily in the country, while many of the victims are killed.
However, in her response, Union Minister Annapurna Devi said that a centrally sponsored scheme to establish fast-track courts started in 2019, and until June 2024, 752 fast-track courts, including 409 exclusive POCSO courts, were made functional in 30 states and UTs.
While disclosing this, Devi said that West Bengal was provided with 123 fast-track courts, of which 20 are exclusive for POCSO while 103 are combined courts. However, none were functional before mid-2023. In fact, the state government communicated its intent to participate in the scheme only recently and committed to setting up 7 such courts. As of June 2024, there are just 6 exclusive POCSO courts in implementation.
He also said that the Trinamool Congress led government in West Bengal has not adopted a national helpline launched by the centre regarding any emergency calls from women or children, thus denying the people of West Bengal this basic facility for emergency.
Devi further stated that adequate laws are already in place to protect women, and ensuring protection against offenses committed by those belonging to higher strata of society is not difficult where actual enforcement lies with the state government.
She appealed to the West Bengal government to work towards developing sensitivity in directing such conditions into something that would provide safe growth and stability for women and girl children.
The dialogue simply shows how the Centre and the state government continue with the blame game for the failure to address the issue of women’s safety.
