Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal on Sunday ended her fast she launched nine-days ago after President Ram Nath Kovind approved an ordinance giving death penalty to child rapists.
DCW chief Maliwal, 33, went on an indefinite hunger strike at Rajghat and refused to break it till such time the government acted seriously against those who sexually assault young girls.
On Sunday, the President promulgated The Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2018, which was approved by the Cabinet on Saturday.
In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, Maliwal highlighted three rape cases between 18 and 20 April in three different states in which children aged 8-11 were victims and demanded that cases pertaining to rape of children are completed in six months and the guilty given death penalty.
“Until something concrete happens, I will not give up. Until a system is there which ensures safety for the last girl, I won’t give up,” she had said on Saturday.
The Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday approved an ordinance, or emergency order, to introduce death penalty for child rapists. The approval will pave the way to award capital punishment to those convicted of raping children up to 12 years of age.
Maliwal began her fast following the widely condemned rape and murder of an eight-year-old in Jammu and Kashmir in January and similar crimes elsewhere in the country.