India to name and shame rapists

The Indian government said on Thursday it will post the photos, names and addresses of convicted rapists on official websites to publicly shame them, in a new measure to combat growing crime against women. Ratanjit Pratap Narain Singh, India's junior home minister, said the campaign would begin first in New Delhi, where the brutal gang-rape of a student on December 16 by six drunken men has sparked nationwide protests. "We are planning to start it (the campaign) in Delhi," Singh told reporters, hours after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said women were being treated unfairly in India. "Photographs, names and addresses of the rapists will be uploaded on the Delhi Police website (http://www.delhipolice.nic.in)," he said. "We are very serious about dealing with the problem and taking all possible action as early as possible." The minister said the government-run National Crime Records Bureau had been told to prepare a directory of convicted rapists and upload their photographs and personal details to its official website (http://ncrb.nic.in) as well. The announcement came a day after India said it had launched a judicial probe into the attack on the 23-year-old student who was airlifted to Singapore from a hospital in New Delhi late on Wednesday. Doctors in Singapore were battling on Thursday to save her life following the horrific injuries she sustained. Her drunken attackers, joyriding in a bus, raped the student and then assaulted her with an iron bar. The savage gang rape sparked some of New Delhi's largest mass protests in decades. India has also promised to toughen laws against rape, which currently carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.