West Bengal Assembly passes anti-rape Bill for stringent punishment
The West Bengal assembly on Tuesday unanimously cleared a stringent new bill that sought to make the death penalty mandatory in cases involving rape and murder, setting the stage for a protracted political face-off against the backdrop of the grisly death of a junior doctor in Kolkata last month that has sparked sweeping protests.
Introduced by chief minister Mamata Banerjee, the Aparajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, 2024, sought to change several sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
The punishment for rape, gang rape acid attacks, and repeat offenders is proposed to be imprisonment for the remainder of the convict’s life.
Under BNS, if rape results in the victim’s death or leaves her in a persistent vegetative state, death penalty is only one of the punishments besides life term or minimum sentence of 20 years in jail .
For rape and murder, the proposed punishment is death. For revealing the identity of the victim, a jail term between three and five years was proposed.
The bill also proposed amendments to various sections of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 to ensure timebound trial, more fast-track courts, and added infrastructure for law enforcement agencies.