Released ‘juvenile’ rapist threatens victim’s sister

Even as voices demanding a relook and review of the Juvenile Justice Act resonate louder after the incidents of December 16 in Delhi and August 22 in Mumbai, a report in the Times of India today reminds us of just why it is about time for that change.

A juvenile offender Vishal (whose name has been changed by the newspaper) was found guilty of the rape and murder of a 6-year-old girl in a 2007 case, by a trial court which handed him death. However, the Delhi High Court, last November,  held that he was a juvenile at the time he committed the crime, following which he was allowed to return home — as he had already served a prison sentence of five years.

The Juvenile Justice Act, which was last amended over 10 years ago, allows for a maximum term of just three years in a reform home for a person below the age of 18, who has committed a crime. The Act does not consider the nature of the crime and has a blanket punishment irrespective of what the crime is.

The newspaper reported:

Vishal was spared death despite conviction thanks to the Act, though he had brutally raped and murdered his minor victim in the neighborhood, chopped her body and threw the parts in two public toilets. A trial court handed him the death holding his age to be 20 years. But, relying on a bone ossification test — which put his age between 17-20 years at the time of the crime — and statements by his sisters, Delhi high court declared him a “juvenile in conflict with law”.

According to the TOI  report, Vishal who lives in north Delhi’s Rohini area, still lives only a few hundred metres away from the family of the six-year-old girl he brutally raped and cut to pieces. The newspaper also reports that earlier this year, he allegedly threatened to do the same to their younger daughter.

Earlier this year, the family lodged a case of criminal intimidation and criminal trespass against Vishal with the local police, but he was released on bail soon after.

“Our family just can’t digest the fact that the killer is living right in our midst and the police and judiciary can’t do anything about it,” Manoj, a relative, told TOI .

The Delhi Police told the newspaper that it plans to cite Vishal’s case before the Supreme Court to push for reforms in the Juvenile Justice Act (JJ Act) and hope that it helps initiate a reform. Just as all those voices demanding a relook will.