Karnataka Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy on Saturday said that the home department is studying a bill proposed in Madhya Pradesh, that considered death penalty for sexual offenders attacking minors, especially those below 12 years.
He indicated that the Karnataka government would be willing to introduce a similar bill.
“I’ve asked officials in the home department to study the bill introduced in Madhya Pradesh. I’ll discuss it with the CM to introduce a similar bill here,” Reddy told the Times of India.
"You have seen the recent incident of rape and murder of a Dalit minor girl, which caused so much of tension in coastal Karnataka and its neighbouring districts. So such laws will curb such heinous crimes," Reddy told Moneycontrol.
On December 4, the Madhya Pradesh Assembly had passed a bill providing for awarding death penalty to those found guilty of raping girls aged 12 and below. It is the first state in the country to have such a law.
On November 26, the state Cabinet had approved the amendment bill that proposed addition of two provisos to Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The amendment bill also included provision of three years in jail for exploiting women on the false promise of marriage.
Experts were sceptical of the utility of the law is in question.
“Stringent punishment of any sort for adults committing such crimes is welcome. However, one must debate whether the death penalty is really the way forward, even in such cases. When several countries in the world are doing away with such punishment, we need to discuss it at length and not act just based on emotion,” said Child Rights Trust director Nagasimha G Rao, speaking to ToI.
Others pointed out that Karnataka is a state with a poor rate of conviction in sexual assault cases.
With inputs from IANS