Woman, there is nothing worse than crying wolf

Namrata(name changed), had got married only five months ago and she had hardly had time to adjust with her new family and husband, her mother calls her 10 times a day, checking up on her and dissecting every single thing that was being said in her in- laws house. Soon she became aggressive and started picking up fights at her mother’s prodding, asking for money and property.

When the family didn’t respond to all these claims, her mother ‘counseled’ her saying it was in her best interest to file a case against them , saying it would teach them a lesson to take her seriously, soon enough the family had enough and asked her to leave at which point they added to the FIR that her father-in-law also raped her while her mother-in-law watched, she claimed she was beaten and tortured and not given enough food.

The entire family was put in jail, fortunately when things got so out of hand, Namrata felt her mother had been wrong and in her testimony she backed out of the entire claim. One family was spared but what about the numerous men who are in jail because they didn’t want to marry the girl they had an affair with. It is unfair to cry rape and manipulate a system that has been put in place to ensure justice for the women who deserve it.

The story of the boy, who cried wolf is one that resonates on many levels, it is a story of how lying eventually does you no good. Though India is in a constant battle for gender equality and governments have fallen trying to grapple with the issue of crime against women, still there is a breed of women out there, who claim rape or dowry harassment or physical abuse, falsely implicating the boyfriend, husband, father, mother-in-law etc.

The most common reason for the filing of these cases seem to be revenge.
About 31,292 cases of alleged cruelty by husbands and in-laws, filed by women under Section 498A of the IPC between 2011 and 2013, were found to be false or mistake of fact or law after police investigation. The Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) revealing shocking statistics showing that 53.2% of the rape cases filed between April 2013 and July 2014 in Delhi were found ‘false’. The Delhi Commission of Women further said it was investigating individual complaints of rape to ensure the victims get justice.
However, it added that in many cases, the complainant turned hostile. This makes it very difficult for the courts to do their job, as it makes it harder for them to differentiate between the genuine and the false cases.

Women try to extort money or extract revenge for being jilted. They should take a moment to realize the years they are costing for these men and women. Young men whose life is being wasted in litigation, Many men have lost their jobs or have had to quit their professions as a result of the never-ending legalized harassment. In one such case, where a woman filed a false rape case against a Delhi businessman at the behest of someone wanting to settle scores against him and take revenge. The Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat’s in this context said “This is a perfect illustration of total misuse of rape laws”, he added firmly that “Time has come when the courts should deal firmly with the women filing false complaints of rape.”

Another worrying aspect is that false rape cases, make the crime graph shoot up, giving an unrealistic picture of rape in the country. These false charges make the police, the courts are all wary of the authenticity of rape cases and this leads society to cast aspersions on actual rape victims. As a woman, trivializing rape is the absolute greatest crime, and the punishment must be handed out accordingly to these tormentors.

Rape traumatizes and brings with it a feeling of being violated, vulnerability and emotional distress to the victim and their family. Falsely accusing someone of rape or dowry harassment etc also puts them through acute mental agony and disgrace, people lose their jobs and families fall apart, I mean who wants to hire a rape accused. Every word we say and all our actions has a consequence, to all the women out there, try to live a life with integrity and work towards building a country that is safe for women, but with antics like this, you’re making actual victims shut up out of the fear that nobody will believe them. Stand up for your rights, but don’t cry wolf, because we all know what happens to those who do.