Expressing anguish over the brutal rape of a five-year-old girl in Delhi, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj on Saturday demanded capital punishment in child rape cases and those involving brutality and barbarity and said the new anti-rape law be made more stringent.
"Nothing short of death sentence in cases of rape of children and cases involving brutality and barbarity will help," Swaraj, who met the victim at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, said.
"I went to AIIMS to see the child. Doctors are doing their best. Let us all pray...I think we should hang these criminals and save our children," she wrote on Twitter.
Swaraj said the new anti-rape law should include two more provisions for providing death penalty to those who rape children and those who commit heinous and brutal crimes.
The BJP leader said these "perverts and sadists" require shock treatment. "We need to make the recent law more stringent," she said. The leader of opposition in Lok Sabha also asked Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde to convene a meeting of representatives of all political parties to provide for death sentence to perpetrators of such brutal crimes.
"The home minister should convene a meeting of representatives of all political parties to provide for death sentence in cases of rape of children and cases involving brutality and barbarity as in the present case," she said, adding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should also be present at the meeting.
The BJP leader felt there was no let up in rape cases after the December 16 gang rape incident that shook the entire nation and said she saw another five-year-old girl, who was also a rape victim, in another room at AIIMS.
"I had thought barbarity in Damini case was an aberration. Delhi child rape case has shown that perversity and sadism is common to these criminals," Swaraj said.
