Sunitha Krishnan, founder of Prajwala, a city-based voluntary organisation crusading against child and women trafficking for 18 years now, has expressed happiness that an accused in a rape case was identified as Shubrat Sahu @ Kalia Sahu, a Bhubaneswar-based realtor and arrested by a team of the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Six others who were identified in other rape cases were yet to be arrested, she said. The CBI action was subsequent to a Supreme Court directive after admitting her complaint as a petition.
“I am glad the action has started but this is just a beginning and all sections of society have to rise up as one,” she said.
Six demandsIn her petition, she made six demands. The CBI should act on its own against such offences when they come to light. It should set up a National Task Force at the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), create a National Sex Offenders Register and make it public like Europe, U.K. and the U.S. The agency must facilitate an agreement between MHA on the one hand and Youtube and WhatsApp on the other with a facility to automatically route such criminally offensive videos to the MHA website so that it could moot action.
“Currently, such videos when reported, are either deleted or simply marked as ‘adult content’ and this is of no use,” Ms. Sunitha rued. The two other demands she made were that all senior officers in investigating agencies be trained on the emerging scenario of sex crimes through cyber media and have a citizen-friendly mechanism that would keep the complainant’s identity confidential.
