Kolkata horror: RSS calls for fast tracking rape trials, regulating online content

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 2

The ruling BJP’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Monday called for fast tracking of rape trials and regulation of online content even as it expressed alarm over the brutal sexual assault and killing of a junior medic at RG Kar hospital in Kolkata.

It is important to reduce the wait for justice, the Sangh said at the end of a three-day meeting with its 32 affiliates including the BJP, in Kerala’s Palakkad.

“We need a fast track of trials. Justice process should not be so prolonged. We discussed ways to overcome time gaps in delivery of justice. Different affiliated organisations will discuss the issue with legal experts and the government also,” RSS all India communications chief Sunil Ambekar said today.

Ambekar said all RSS inspired organisations expressed agitation at what happened in Kolkata and narrated incidents and reasons thereof from different states.

“The role of government, government machinery, penal provisions was also debated. There is a need to revisit all this. Proper fact track procedures to deliver justice to victims which will finally end all such atrocities is necessary,” said the RSS functionary.

The Sangh, he added, had concluded that all its inspired organisations will to take up the issue on five fronts—legally, social awareness so that people come forward to stop such crimes, family values to curb criminal tendencies, formal/informal education to teach about the sensitivity of the issue, need for self-defence activities and regulation of OTT, digital, TV and internet content.

“It has been seen that many people who wreck such havoc have long watched online content,” Ambekar said.

On other issues discussed at the RSS meeting, Ambekar said concerns were expressed on the status of Bangladeshi Hindus and other minorities.

“A detailed report was given by different organisations on Bangladesh issue. Everyone is worried about Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh. Our government should talk to them to ensure the safety of Hindus,” Ambekar said, adding that the RSS had also decided to take up in detail the reports of mass conversion by Christian missions in Tamil Nadu on which many of its organisations had shared evidence.

Asked whether the RSS and the BJP thrashed out their differences which were known to have cost the ruling party its majority in the 2024 national election, Ambekar said, “These are family matters and will be resolved. We are all a family and all is well.”