The Supreme Court on
Monday said there was a need to create fear in the minds of goons committing
crimes against women, while noting that there is a feeling that women are not
safe in the city, particularly some vulnerable pockets.
The court made the remarks
while hearing a suo motu case over recent rape incidents in Delhi-NCR.
"We have to work
together. We must ensure that every woman in Delhi-NCR should feel safe even at
11 pm whether travelling on the roads or the metro," a bench of Justices J
B Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran observed.
"What is important
is to prevent a crime, not what you do after a crime is committed," the
bench said, adding police needs to create fear in the mind of goons and
anti-social elements who are prone to committing such crimes.
The bench, which was
hearing a suo motu case titled 'In Re: Recent rape incidents in Delhi NCR',
observed that "rape is something which is not at all acceptable to any
society".
The apex court had on
September 28 taken suo motu cognisance of news reports about crimes against
minor girls and women across Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR), observing
that such cases underline a systematic failure on the part of law enforcement
authorities.
The top court took
cognisance of the alleged gang-rape of a 17-year-old girl at Aastha Kunj Park
in Delhi, gang-rape and murder of a teenage girl in Swaroop Nagar area of Delhi
and sexual assault of a minor girl inside a moving sleeper bus which the law
enforcement agencies failed to intercept while it traversed a distance of over
47 km from Greater Noida to Delhi.