'Are people going mad?'

"It is surprising, what is happening in Delhi. Something somewhere is wrong," said a division bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice Jayant Nath. "Are people going mad? A five-year-old has been raped... Some sort of awareness is needed." The bench also asked the home ministry and Delhi Police to find out the ‘root cause' of the sudden spurt in rape incidents. "Now we have to see how to prevent this type of crime and for that we have to find out the root cause," the court said. u00a0"Everybody is very sad about what is happening in Delhi. It's a frequent thing here. Most of the accused belong to neighbouring states. How to prevent this?u00a0

When will it end? A young girl holds a poster of a weeping toddler to protest in Allahabad against the horrific rape of the five-year-old in the national capital. Pic/AFP

Look what has happened with a five-year-old kid," the court said, while suggesting that the government should screen people coming to the national capital from various states. The court, pointing to the insensitivity of police officials who refused to accept a missing person complaint from the child's family, and later offered the parents a bribe for keeping mum, said, "Police should also identify the areas of training to make its officials more sensitive."

The judges asked Delhi Police to file a report on the training imparted to its officials. "Produce what is your module for sensitisation of police," the court told Dayan Krishnan, special public prosecutor. "As far as the awareness, sensitisation of the police is concerned, we are of the considered view that it is not sufficient... And they must be given sufficient training."

Krishnan, appearing for Delhi police, assured the court that "the work to sensitise the police official is under process". u00a0The court was hearing the case after it took suo moto cognisance of the gang rape of the 23-year-old physiotherapist by six accused in a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012. u00a0Meanwhile, a Delhi court yesterday sent Manoj Sah, the prime accused in the five-year-old girl's rape-and-torture case, to five days' police custody to confront him with Pradeep Ram, second accused in the case. u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0