India: Court Reduces Punishment of Muslim Rapist of a Minor Because He Thinks Like Gandhi

Order Jamie Glazov’s new book, ‘United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny, Terror, and Hamas’: HERE.

In a weird turn of events, the Bombay High Court recently reduced the life sentence of Kalamuddin Mohammad Isteyar Ansari, a Muslim man convicted of raping a five-year-old girl, to just 12 years’ imprisonment. The court upheld his conviction under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, but significantly reduced the time of punishment, citing his conduct in jail. Among the factors considered were Ansari’s participation in educational programs and essay writing, as well as his engagement with Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy. While Mahatma Gandhi is widely celebrated as a towering advocate of non-violence, a lesser-discussed aspect of his legacy is his pronounced and sometimes controversial favoritism toward Muslims during the Indian freedom movement, Partition, and periods of communal unrest. Ansari’s association with Gandhian philosophy therefore may not surprise those familiar with this dimension of Gandhi’s persona.

Ansari assaulted his victim in December 2016, when the five-year-old girl had gone to a neighboring house. The Special POCSO Court found the child’s testimony credible and sentenced Ansari to life imprisonment. However, the High Court concluded that a 12-year sentence would suffice, taking into account the time already served and what it described as the convict’s reformative tendencies. The judgment noted that Ansari was 20 years old at the time of the offense and had no prior criminal record. So according to Indian judges, a 20-year-old Muslim man is too naive to know better than to rape, let alone a child?

The decision has drawn sharp criticism from the public. Reducing a life sentence in a case involving the sexual assault of a five-year-old sends a deeply troubling message relating to accountability for crimes against children. One is compelled to wonder whether writing essays or showing interest in philosophical ideas should meaningfully alter the consequences of such a heinous crime. There are concerns that this reasoning risks trivializing the trauma that the victim and her family endured. This ruling has exposed how Indian courts fail to protect children from sexual violence, especially when the convict is a Muslim.

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) was enacted in 2012 to create a comprehensive legal framework to protect children below 18 from sexual abuse, exploitation, and pornography. The Act clearly defines offenses, including sexual harassment, sexual assault, penetrative sexual assault, and aggravated penetrative sexual assault, while establishing child-friendly procedures for reporting crimes, recording evidence, and conducting trials through designated Special Courts. Over the years, amendments have strengthened its punitive provisions. Following changes in 2019, the Act now provides for enhanced minimum sentences and, in the most heinous cases, particularly aggravated penetrative sexual assault of children under 12, allows for the death penalty. Through these provisions, Parliament signaled its intent to treat sexual crimes against minors as among the gravest offenses under Indian criminal law.

Initially, Indians welcomed POCSO, hoping it would serve as a strong deterrent and instill fear of severe punishment, even death, in potential offenders. However, the reality has fallen short of expectations. Courts have repeatedly reduced sentences, even in cases where there was loss of life, citing factors that appear vague to the onlooker and almost establish that judges sympathize with offenders from the Muslim community more than the innocent and little victims who endured their monstrous behavior.

Mohd Firoz’s case is another example of these practices within the Indian judiciary. Firoz was convicted in April 2013 for the rape and murder of a four-year-old girl in Madhya Pradesh. Evidence, including the post-mortem report, showed that the child died from asphyxia after sexual assault. A Special Court sentenced him to death, and the Madhya Pradesh High Court upheld that sentence. However, in April 2022, the Supreme Court of India commuted his death sentence to 20 years of imprisonment, holding that while the crime was heinous, it did not meet the “rarest of rare” threshold required for capital punishment. In its reasoning, the bench cited reformative principles and quoted Oscar Wilde, noting that “every sinner has a future.” The victim’s mother appealed to the Supreme Court, poignantly stating that her toddler also had a future, which had been cruelly taken away, emphasizing that justice demanded the strictest punishment.

Similarly, in June 2024, the Orissa High Court commuted the death sentence of Sk. Asif Ali, convicted for the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl in Jagatsinghpur in August 2014, was sentenced to life imprisonment. The High Court upheld his conviction but cited mitigating factors, including his good conduct in jail and the fact that he was “offering Namaz (the Islamic prayer) many times in a day.” For the bench, these factors suggested surrender to Allah and reform, and concluded that life imprisonment would be a proportionate punishment.

While the intent of POCSO is to provide the strongest possible protection for minors, judicial practices in these cases have left citizens questioning whether Indian judges are serving justice for victims of sexual violence or safeguarding Islamist rapists through unconvincing excuses. In India, where many judges are perceived to come from a predominantly left-leaning mindset, their sympathetic alignment toward Muslim offenders is often seen as a given. However, such judgments often appear to betray the little children by the very justice system entrusted to protect them, projecting that judicial priorities are skewed more toward communal considerations than toward delivering justice to the victims.