Khap panchayats shock again, say don't want death penalty for the six Delhi gangrape accused

Opposing the demand for death penalty for rapists, Khaps in Haryana on Sunday said that no law should be introduced in a hurry, which can be misused. Speaking at a village here, Khap leader Sube Singh said that the authorities should not be carried away by emotions in the wake of the public protests over the Delhi gangrape issue and demand death penalty for rapists. “We have seen the anti-dowry Act and the SC/ST Act being misused. Any new law which gives such harsh punishment would also be vulnerable to misuse,” Singh said.
The influential khaps or caste panchayats have in the past drawn flak for opposing marriages in the same sect and their diktats on moral policing.
The statement by the Khap leader raised hackles of activists who said it was an attempt to shield the rapists in Haryana.
"20 gangrapes took place in Haryana in which several people are involved. This is a plot to save them. This atmosphere forces them to... disrespect among women," Jagmati Sangwan, general secretary of the All-India Democratic Women's Association, said.
The controversy comes in the midst of national outrage over the brutal gangrape of a 23-year-old in Delhi who died on Friday night.

Source: The Indian Express
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A 23 year-old student, after a movie night out with her male friend, had mistakenly boarded a bus stolen by 6 drunk males on a joyride.  She was sexually assaulted and beated with iron rods, stripped and thrown out of the bus and left to die.  Suffering from multiple-organ failure, the Indian governement had expediated her passport application and flew her and her family to Singapore for treatment. 

Sadly, she has succumbed to her injuries and died in Singapore, where she was later cremeted in Delhi.  The attack on her sparked huge protests in India, where females were viewed as second-class citizens and attacks on them often went unpunished.

In the midst of public anger, Khaps in Haryana expressed their opposition to "harsh" penalties for attackers of females in India.

I wasn't shocked by statements like that.  I was, however, thoroughly shocked by something else.
In a culture where female infanticide was common, where females could be tortured for their dowry, where females are second-class citizens in their own country, especially in the rural areas, the student's father stood out as an enlightened man.

It was reported that her father, himself a poor cargo handler at the airport, had deemed his daughter's education to be important enough for him to sell off his ancestral land back in Uttar Pradesh to finance her studies in Delhi.

Sadly, his hopes of a better future for her had been dashed by the very people who might one day be fathers themselves to their daughters.