New Delhi:The Centre on Saturday approved an ordinance to amend the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act to provide for the death penalty for the rape of children below the age of 12.
The move comes in the wake of public outrage over the Kathua rape-and-murder case where the victim was a minor.
After the case of the eight-year-old Kathua victim, other instances, such as in Surat where a nine-year-old, apparently a victim of traffickers, was raped and killed, added urgency to the government’s actions.
Existing provisions of the POCSO Act provide for life imprisonment, though after the Nirbhaya case in 2012 the Centre had introduced the death penalty in cases where a woman either dies or is left in a vegetative state after rape.
Recently, four states passed laws making the rape of a minor punishable by death. The Cabinet action follows the Centre informing the Supreme Court on Friday that it proposed to amend POCSO to provide for the death penalty for aggravated sexual assaults on children below 12.