Centre for 7-yr jail for stalkers
As stalking of women assumes a menacing proportion in the country, the women and child development (WCD) ministry has proposed a separate penal provision to deal with the offence.
Till date, there has been no penal provision defining the offence of stalking in theIndian Penal Code (IPC), which had often led to serious sexual assaults of women. The WCD has proposed to make the law more stringent and recommended seven years imprisonment for the stalkers, besides, fine.
According to sources, the WCD has proposed to the ministry of home affairs (MHA) that any conduct that causes harassment including “repeatedly following the woman from place to place, repeatedly contacting the woman through mails, fax etc or repeatedly loitering or watching the house or the woman’s workplace” should be considered an offence and be dealt in a stringent manner. The WCD feels that the menace “needs to be dealt as an independent offence than those listed under IPC on sexual harassment of women.”
The National Commission for Women had in 2010 asked the WCD ministry to view at as a major offence and add a separate section in the IPC, instead of clubbing it with eve-teasing.
It was claimed that the MHA’s proposal to expand the definition of rape, do not include stalking. Responding to the MHA proposal, the WCD suggested that a separate penal provision need to be created to deal with stalking.
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Minister asks cm to follow coalition rule
AGE CORRESPONDENT
Kolkata, Jan. 10
The Congress-Trinamul Congress row reached a new low when a Congress minister Manoj Chakraborty on Monday used the podium at the Writers’ Buildings to point out that the Mamata Banerjee government should follow the coalition dharma.
The minister of state for small industries’ tirade was apparently in retaliation to the attack the chief minister had launched from the same podium on Saturday. “No one should think that we are in power due to their mercy. We fought as alliance partner and were elected. We are not x y z and the Congress is not a party of Tom, Dick and Harry. It is an all-India party. We will quit when our party will ask us to do so,” he added. He was clearly replying to Ms Banerjee’s challenge that the Congress was free to quit.
When asked to comment on Ms Banerjee’s objection that despite being in the government, the Congress leaders were organising protests over farmers’ issue, he said, “When the Trinamul Congress had protested against FDI in retail in Parliament, the Congress did not attack them.” He advised the state government to exercise restraint and follow the rajdharma. Mr Chakraborty said that the government’s image had taken a beating by its handling of the principal assault incidents in two colleges.
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