Vile and unrepentant

Rapists must be punished in exemplary manner and Singh should never walk among us again.

Mukesh Singh was the driver of the bus on which a young Delhi woman was raped with such appalling violence that she later died of her internal injuries. The case was so horrific that it genuinely shocked the wider world and the ripples spreading from it are felt even today, more than two years later. The men involved were caught and found guilty and subsequently sentenced to death. They are currently awaiting the outcome of their appeals. Singh has been interviewed for a BBC documentary whilst in prison, and what he has said has caused shock and revulsion not dissimilar to that evoked by the original offence. He is completely unrepentant and has blamed the woman who was the victim, saying that “A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy”. He said that women who go out at night had only themselves to blame if they were raped or otherwise molested.

Shocking as his statement is it is yet more shocking to reflect on the reality that there are millions of men in the subcontinent who would entirely agree with him. Indeed, such mindsets are not limited to the subcontinent; they are found in other parts of the world, including the ‘developed’ West. Singh went further, saying that women should not resist rape, should not fight back, but wait until it was over and then resume their lives. His perverse logic is that sentencing rapists to death is only going to increase the risks to women in that rapists will kill them rather than releasing them at the end of their ordeal. Again there will be those who agree with him. One might question the wisdom of giving Singh a platform to propagate his views but in doing so he has shed light on the darker recesses of the minds of many men. We say in the clearest terms — ‘Women are not property.’ Rape is a foul crime that stains a woman for the rest of her life. It must be punished in exemplary manner and Singh should never walk among us again.

Published in The Express Tribune, March  4^th,  2015.

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