MUMBAI – India on Saturday approved the death penalty for those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years amid outrage in the country after a string of horrific cases of sexual violence.
The change to the country’s penal code applies to those convicted of raping a child under the age of 12, BBC reported.
There have been nationwide protests in recent weeks over the gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl. The government has come under fire for not doing enough to prevent sexual-assault cases, many involving children.
A number of serious crimes in India carry the death penalty, but raping a child was not among them until now. Nearly 19,000 cases were registered in India in 2016 – more than 50 each day.
The executive order was cleared at a special cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
It allows capital punishment for anyone convicted of raping children under the age of 12. Minimum prison sentences for rape against girls under the age of 16 and women have also been raised.
Protests erupted earlier this month after police released horrific details of the rape of an eight-year-old Muslim girl by Hindu men in Kathua, in Indian-administered Kashmir in January.
The four men convicted in the Delhi bus case were sentenced to death, though this has not yet been carried out.
Hanging is the main method of execution. A man convicted of financing the deadly 1993 Mumbai bombings was the last person to be executed in India – in 2015.
