The rapist cum murderer of a six-year-old girl in Ukalana Mandi, a suburban town of Hisar district in Haryana, has crossed all the boundaries of brutality. In the midnight of December 8-9 , an unidentified person abducted the minor girl from inside the 'jhuggi' ( Hut ) where she was sleeping with her mother and two siblings. However, the mother came to know about the incident only in the morning when the badly brutalised and blood stained dead body of the girl was found near the telephone exchange building. The doctors doing the postmortem, stated that the assailant had inserted a wooden stick into the private parts of the victim girl, which ruptured her intestine and caused her death. A doctor in the medical board panel said, " It is inhuman. How a person can be so barbarian?"

But in a state, proclaiming the success of ' Beti Bachao-Beti-Padhao' campaign, this is not the first brutal rape incident. In May, 2017 a 23-years-old woman was abducted, gang-raped and murdered. The rapists hit her with a blunt object smashing her head, face and lower part of her body. Before killing the woman , the barbarous rapists inserted sharp objects into her private parts. After the incident, Congress President Smt. Sonia Gandhi said, "This savage and bone-chilling incident has shocked the conscience of the nation reminding each one of us about the crying need for revisiting the important issue of women safety and security."

In Rohtak in February, 2015 a mentally challenged 28 year old Nepalese woman was gang-raped and murdered brutally by eight persons. The rapists reportedly inserted sticks and stones in private parts of the woman. While announcing the verdict against these the men, Additional District and Sessions Judge Rohtak, Seema Singhal said, "I award the death sentence to all these accused in the case, and they should be hanged till death."

The honourable judge further added, "Besides a judicial officer , I am also a human being and can hear the groan of the victim. Women are still facing crime and discrimination from males in our society and we still see gender bias in the system, but the judgment should send a strong message to the people and that is the need of the hour."

Did the judgment send a strong message According to the figures released on November 30, 2017 by National Crime Record Bureau rape cases recorded an increase of 12.4% in 2016 from 34651 cases in 2015 to 38947 in 2016. Also cases of crime against women reported an increase of 2.9% in 2016 over the previous year. Haryana ranks at the sixth spot in India with 9839 cases of crime against women in 2016. In Haryana, rape of girls below 12-years has seenIn Haryana, rape of girls below 12-years has shown a sharp increase. a sharp increase.

Now the time has come to rethink over the drawbacks of the police, administration, law makers and the society to curb the crimes against the women; otherwise the 'Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao' campaign will prove a mere ' Much ado about Nothing' programme.