Are Four Slaps Enough Punishment For An Attempted Rape?

The village panchayat of Bhopa, Muzaffarnagar handed a punishment of four slaps to a shopkeeper who allegedly attempted to rape a minor. According to a report in The Times Of India, a video of the girl’s mother and villagers slapping the 35-year-old accused went viral on Sunday. It managed to grab the attention of the local authorities after a strong social media backlash.

While the accused is now in police custody, with a case being registered against him under the POCSO Act, the panchayat members are of the opinion that it is an "internal matter of the village”. The villagers who were part of the panchayat are now looking for the person responsible for uploading the said video on social media. Probably, he would be meted out a much severe punishment for outing this kangaroo court justice, then the alleged accused.

Will four slaps restore the lost morality of the accused?

This abrupt and hasty justice by the panchayat is not just bizarre, it also belittles the crime too. The shopkeeper had dragged a 13-year-old into his shop in broad daylight and tried to force himself on her. If the girl hadn’t managed to escape, who knows what might have transpired.

However, to the village panchayat, this wasn’t a crime big enough to be reported to the authorities. The approach of “internal matter of village” reeks of bias towards the perpetrator and an attempt to deflect the bad publicity Bhopa would have received if the media would have reported this case. This further explains the unhappiness of the village authorities with the video of the panchayat judgement going viral.

 THE BITTER TRUTH

• The villagers chose to suppress the matter to guard their village’s image.
• A crime which deserves severe punishment was deemed to be resolved in four slaps.
• Trivialisation of sexual crimes is an encouragement to sexual perpetrators.

Such judgement legitimises sexually aggressiveness. It surely must be an insignificant crime, if you can get away with just four slaps. Also, it makes one wonder what kind of punishment these villagers would have handed down, if heavens forbid, the man had succeeded in his motive.

It is kangaroo courts, which put women’s safety in villages on the line, just to preserve the village’s image.

Perhaps the patriarchal thinking prevalent in the interiors of this country, make them think of attempted rape as a trivial crime. They might in fact, find faults with the survivor or the family. Clearly, the villagers think that the accused is guilty, but going by the punishment, it doesn't look like it is a damning crime to lay hands on a juvenile girl. All it requires is a slap on the wrist (or to his face, in this case) and his moral compass will be back on the track.

When will this trivialisation of sexual assault in our country stop? When will the society start making attempts to make men realise the gravity of their crime? How can a crime, deserving punishment worth years of rotting in jail, be resolved in four slaps? Unless the society stops shielding sexual predators from the law and deeming their crimes as “internal matter”, women will always have to live in fear.

(Picture Credit: apblive)

Also Read : Unnao Molestation Video: The Shame Still Befalls Women

Yamini Pustake Bhalerao is a writer with the SheThePeople team, in the Opinions section. The views expressed are the author’s own.