NEW DELHI: Delhi Commission for Women chief Swati Maliwal on Sunday ended her hungerstrike after President Ram Nath Kovind promulgated an ordinance to give stringent punishment, including death penalty, for those convicted of raping girls below 12 years.
Ms Maliwal was on a hungerstrike for the past 10 days at Rajghat.
Congratulating the people for the ordinance, she said that very few protests had achieved so much in such less time. She termed the government’s decision a “historic victory” for independent India.
Ending her fast, Ms Maliwal said: “Every day children aged three, four or six years are getting raped in a brutal manner. I wrote letters and issued notices. I submitted 5.5 lakh letters written by citizens to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi , but in vain…After which, I decided to sit on a hunger strike. There was no strategy, but gradually people joined the movement across the country,’’ she said
“It gained such a momentum that PM Modi after returning to India had to make an amendment in the law. I congratulate the people of India for this victory,’ she added.”
She had been demanding death penalty for rape of minors and setting up of fast-track courts across the country to try rape cases. Amid a nationwide outrage over cases of sexual assault on girls and women at Kathua in J&K, Surat in Gujarat and Unnao in UP, the Union cabinet had on Saturday approved the ordinance to provide stringent punishment, including death penalty, for those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years.
Ms Maliwal had on Saturday written to the Prime Minister mentioning her six demands, including the passage of the ordinance, recruitment of police personnel as per the UN standards and fixing accountability of the police force.
She also said files relating to the recruitment of 14,000 police personnel, approved by the Union home ministry, but pending with the finance ministry, be cleared. She also demanded for constitution of a panel comprising Delhi chief minister, home minister and lieutenant-governor to review safety of women in the national capital.
