Hang rapists publicly: Rajasthan minister

Amid a country-wide outrage over a spate of rape incidents and the subsequent brutalisation of victims, a Rajasthan minister on Thursday batted for rapists' execution by public hanging.

Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Master Bhanwar Lal Meghwal said there are countries where the punishment of public execution or castration is given to such offenders.

“Rapes will be stopped if the accused are hanged in public. There are countries where (the provision for) public execution is there, (where) hands are chopped and accused are castrated,” Meghwal told reporters at the Pradesh Congress Committee office here.

He said the government makes strict laws and every court, from Munsif courts to the Supreme Court of India, should award death penalty to the rape accused.

Meghwal made the remarks hours after a rape victim was set ablaze in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao by five men, including the alleged rapist, on Thursday morning while she was on her way to the court to attend hearing in the case.

Earlier on Monday night, a girl was shot dead and burnt after being allegedly raped in Kukudha village of Bihar's Buxar district.

A day after the Buxar incident, a charred body of a woman, suspected to be a victim of sexual assault, was found at a secluded spot in Bihar's Samastipur district on Wednesday, making it the second such incident in the state in barely 24 hours.

The two back-to-back, horrific incidents of rape-cum-brutalisation in Bihar occurred barely days after a woman veterinary doctor was raped and murdered last week in Hyderabad by four men in an another horrendous incident.