Reports of sexual abuse of children in different parts of India are simply horrifying. The case of Sunil Rastogi who raped a minor girl and tried to rape three others betrays aspects of the human beast. In fact, he has admitted abusing around 500 children over a period of 12 years. He was jailed for 3 months in February last year for assaulting a girl in Uttarakhand. He seems a serial pedophile roaming over the cow belt. But other areas are no better. In West Bengal a school teacher is reported to have made minor girl students bathe naked and abused some of them. The only way the menace can be tackled is by toning up police efficiency and purposefulness. The judiciary should also be more alive to the need for speedy convictions. Reporting of such cases of child abuse should not be lessened by fear or embarrassment. Involvement of powerful people can gag the press as in the Madhur Bhandarkar film ‘Page 3’. So the collaborative effort of the police, the judiciary and the press only can help in eradicating the social disgrace. It is necessary to train the police and soup up the police machinery. It is reported that as many as 402 police stations in the country have no telephone line.
PM Narendra Modi speaks of a digital India. The Rupees 2000 crore project to digitize crime records and connect about 14,000 police stations remains incomplete. Minister for Women and Children, Maneka Gandhi made a demand for a national registry of sex offenders. Her sincerity cannot be questioned. That calls for police reforms enjoined by the Supreme Court.