Fighting System with System
This in a way is my first blog because my earlier, may be 10 years back, attempts to blog were just copy paste jobs. However, anecdote below penned (Hurrayyyyy..finally) is an honest attempt to contribute to society.
I recently moved to a new rented apartment in a Delhi locality. To get tenant verification, owner requested me to help him, I googled and found a link on Delhi Police Website. I was mighty impressed besides other sections website had a section for “Citizen Services” which covered lots of valuable information including the forms and process related to Tenant verification. However, what caught my eyes was a link which took me to the list of sexual offenders in Delhi. This list not just contained name of convicts of sexual crimes, their last known addresses but their face photos as well. Something was not right. Being a curious person all through my life and having an opinion about any damn thing in this world several questions came to my mind instantaneously. First: does our constitution allow naming and shaming of convicts by default? Second: should not those served their sentences or presently serving be given another chance? Third: can this public list be deterrent? Fourth: What about those who have already served their sentences and want to merge with society and live peacefully? Questions were many but I was not sure of answer/s. I pondered over this for next few days and googled to find my answers. I reached to the conclusion people commit crimes for various reasons but as long as one is reformed and decides to merge into the society after serving her/his sentence, State is duty bound to let it happen seamlessly. After all dreaded terrorists have been given chance to merge into society if they have given up weapons. Above all naming and shaming shuts all doors. This also seemed like a gross human rights violation. Something needed to be done. URGENTLY!!!!
I recently moved to a new rented apartment in a Delhi locality. To get tenant verification, owner requested me to help him, I googled and found a link on Delhi Police Website. I was mighty impressed besides other sections website had a section for “Citizen Services” which covered lots of valuable information including the forms and process related to Tenant verification. However, what caught my eyes was a link which took me to the list of sexual offenders in Delhi. This list not just contained name of convicts of sexual crimes, their last known addresses but their face photos as well. Something was not right. Being a curious person all through my life and having an opinion about any damn thing in this world several questions came to my mind instantaneously. First: does our constitution allow naming and shaming of convicts by default? Second: should not those served their sentences or presently serving be given another chance? Third: can this public list be deterrent? Fourth: What about those who have already served their sentences and want to merge with society and live peacefully? Questions were many but I was not sure of answer/s. I pondered over this for next few days and googled to find my answers. I reached to the conclusion people commit crimes for various reasons but as long as one is reformed and decides to merge into the society after serving her/his sentence, State is duty bound to let it happen seamlessly. After all dreaded terrorists have been given chance to merge into society if they have given up weapons. Above all naming and shaming shuts all doors. This also seemed like a gross human rights violation. Something needed to be done. URGENTLY!!!!
I
along with group of colleagues made it a resolution to do everything
possible to have sexual offender list removed from Delhi Police
website. We believed firmly such list must not be made public. We
zeroed in on an important question how such list is handled world
over? Answer was clear from the material available on internet world
over such list is kept secret and only used by law enforcement
agencies. We also found India is also working on her sexual offender
registry. Request for Proposal (RFP) for the development and
implementation of “National Registry of Sexual Offenders” was
released by National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) working under
Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on 13.05.2018.
Next, we filed RTIs to various departments/ ministries like NCRB, MHA etc.
to find out proposed categorization of sexual offenders, Govt.
agencies that would have access to registry and various other
information. I am putting out the exact reply I got for one of
my RTIs related to the matter.
“Refer
your RTI application. Reply of MHA is given below:
MHA
has launched a portal on National Database on Sexual Offenders for
exclusive use by Law Enforcement Officers for improving the
efficiency and timeliness in investigations. User manual for Law
Enforcement Officers has been circulated to Law Enforcement Officers.
Since the User Manuals are specific to Law Enforcement Officers, the
same are not available for public use. National
Database on Sexual Offenders has been developed in-house by NIC, MHA.
As per available information, an RFP was issued by NCRB for Sexual
Offenders Registry. However, the same is redundant since National
Database on Sexual Offenders has been developed in-house."
Voila!!!! It is important to highlight in above reply, line which reads:
"MHA has launched a portal on National Database on Sexual Offenders for exclusive use by Law Enforcement Officers"
"MHA has launched a portal on National Database on Sexual Offenders for exclusive use by Law Enforcement Officers"
We
could see light at the end of tunnel and what needed to be done next. Based on the reply of RTI,
extensive follow-ups were done with MHA. Link to sexual offender list
on Delhi Police website was pointed out which was public. In the end,
MHA accepted list should not have been public and issued directions
to Delhi Police to remove the list.
Until the list was finally removed wait was nerve wracking. But we all know movement of file/directions from one department of
Govt. to another may take months. Wait was worth it, finally list
was removed.
Ecstatic to share list is no longer at following link or any other link:-)
Ecstatic to share list is no longer at following link or any other link:-)
Post-Script: I must thank the bureaucrat in MHA who helped in the matter. Would just say help comes from those who you expect the least from.
Tikloo (MRA)
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