New Delhi:
Serial or child rapists should be castrated - this is what Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau recommended as she heard a case where a 15-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her stepfather for four years.
"The Indian legislatures are yet to take notice of this alarming situation and address the issue with all seriousness by exploring the possibility of alternative sentences of surgical castration or chemical castration, particularly in cases of minors, serial offenders and child molesters," she said.
Chemical castration, already a law in some places like California and Poland, primarily to curb child sexual abuse involves injecting the criminal with drugs that reduce testosterone. The practice has, however, been criticised as being inhuman.
In India, this is not the first time there has been a demand for severe punishment for sexual offenders. In February, after a kabaddi player was shot dead by a CRPF jawan because she refused to give him her phone number, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj tweeted: "I want death sentence....only death sentence in all cases of rape and murder, kidnapping and murder and abduction."
Now that the issue is back in the headlines, women's rights activists are divided.
"I think it's an option worth exploring...and this comes from a woman judge, who is obviously passionate and feels the case. I am not from the legal community am only a citizen so I can react as one and say, yes, we need some stern action," said Sadia Dehlvi, a women's rights activist and an author.
"This is the same mindset which says if someone steals, cut their hands. If you look at societies across the world, those with very stringent punishments are not those with low crime rate...and the consequences of castration on a male, we may discover that a man castrated becomes so aggressive that he could indulge in worse crimes," said women's rights activist Madhu Kishwar.
The judge has sent a copy of the order to the ministry of law and also to the national commission for women for their opinion.