By Daily Mail (World News) | Created at 2025-03-13 11:45:27 | Updated at 2025-03-13 15:36:57
4 hours ago
An Indian politician has sparked fierce controversy after suggesting that women in the country should be granted immunity for murder amid the rape epidemic.
Rohini Khadse, head of the women's wing of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP-SP) made the shocking proposal in a letter to Indian President Droupadi Murmu on International Women's Day.
Khadse argued that the widespread rape and brutalisation of girls and women in India had reached such a crisis point that drastic measures were needed.
In her letter on March 8, Khadse demanded that women be allowed to kill men who display 'rapist tendencies' without facing prosecution.
She wrote that women 'want to kill the oppressive mentality, the rapist tendency, the inefficiency of law and order,' and for that to happen, women would have to kill men.
'We hope our demand will be granted after giving it a serious thought,' she added.
With a population of 1.4billion - made up of around 672million women and 728million men - if Khadse's suggestion was to be implemented, there may only be some 56million males remaining in the country after each woman had murdered a man.
This would hypothetically drive the population down to 728million.
Rohini Khadse, head of the women's wing of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP-SP) made the shocking proposal in a letter to Indian President Droupadi Murmu on International Women's Day
Medical students shout slogans and hold posters as they protest the rape and murder of a young medic from Kolkata, at the Gandhi Hospital in Varanasi on August 14, 2024
Members of different organisations take part in a protest against the alleged rape of two minor girls, in Bangalore, India, 25 February 2025
Indian protesters hold banners and shout slogans during a protest in New Delhi, 23 July 2006
The demand came in response to a horrifying gang rape of a 12-year-old girl in Mumbai just days earlier.
The girl was allegedly lured into a neighbour's house, where five men attacked her. Khadse pointed to this case as evidence that India remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for women.
'The incident happened two days ago in Mumbai - think what the situation might be across the country,' Khadse wrote, citing a World Population Review Survey that ranked India the most unsafe country for women in Asia.
The NCP-SP is part of the INDIA opposition coalition, which includes the Indian National Congress party, and is fiercely opposed to the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Under BJP rule, reports of gang rapes and brutal killings of women have surged.
Khadse's radical proposal was backed by her party but dismissed by Hindu nationalist figures.
NCP-SP spokesperson Clyde Crasto defended her comments, arguing that the BJP government should reflect on why such drastic measures are being proposed.
'Women are being pushed against the wall with nobody coming to their help,' Crasto said. 'Khadse is vocalising the anguish in the minds of women.'
Khadse also referenced India's history of warrior queens defending their kingdoms, suggesting that modern Indian women are now facing a different kind of battle.
'Heroic women like Maharani Tararani and Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Holkar pulled out swords to defend their people. Why should women today lag?'
While Indian law allows for self-defence in life-threatening situations, Khadse's call for immunity would bypass the legal process altogether.
A medical student holds a placard while taking part during a protest against what they say is rape and murder of a trainee doctor, outside the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, India, on August 12, 2024
Indians walk with placards during a protest demanding justice in the case of a veterinarian who was gang-raped and killed in 2019
However, some Indian women who have fought back against attackers have been praised by the authorities.
Last September, a nurse in Bihar allegedly used a surgical blade to sever a doctor's genitals after he and others reportedly planned to assault her.
Police hailed her courage, with Deputy Superintendent of Police Sanjay Kumar Pandey calling her actions 'praiseworthy.'
Khadse joined fellow NCP-SP members in a protest for women's safety in Mumbai over the weekend.
Demonstrators called for self-defence training to be made part of school curriculum, with some women reportedly detained by police.
Reports of sexual attacks on women have become increasingly common in India, where police recorded 31,516 rape cases in 2022, a 20 per cent increase from the previous year, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
It is thought the true figure may be higher still due to the stigma surrounding sexual violence.
The attack sparked mass protests and prompted legislators to create fast-track courts for rape cases, and harsher penalties.
The rape law was amended in 2013 to criminalise stalking and voyeurism, and to lower the age at which a person can be tried as an adult from 18 to 16.
In 2018, the government approved the use of the death penalty for people convicted of raping children under the age of 12.
High-profile cases involving foreign visitors have drawn international attention to the issue.
Last year, in a video that was later deleted, a Spanish tourist said his wife was raped in northern India, while an Indian-American woman said she was raped at a hotel in New Delhi. In 2022, a British tourist was raped in front of her partner in Goa.
