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Female Criminality in India
along with her husband Hanif Syed got capital punishment for carrying out the twin blasts in 2003 at Zaveri
Bazar and Gateway of India. The Syed’s are the second couple after Nalini and Murugan to get Death Sentence.

The notorious Jammu & Kashmir sex scandal, which surfaced after police discovered which showed a minor
girl being sexually abused. The police arrested a local resident Sabina, who confessed sending girls to politi-
cians, senior bureaucrats and policemen. Dubbed as the scandals kingpin, Sabina ran a brothel in Srinagar and
lured young girls promising them jobs and monetary benefits.
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Another shocking case was the murder of Sister Abhaya. Sister Abhaya had come to know about the illicit rela- A
tions of two priests with Sister Stephy. The two priests and nun arrested for her murder, allegedly confessed to
the crime after being administered truth serum by CBI Investigators. Narco analysis however, is not relied upon P
by courts as primary evidence. Both the priests and nun said that the narco analysis CD was edited by the CBI. I
There was a public outcry and the CBI officer who began the investigation put in his papers alleging pressure to T
close it down.
A
CONCLUSION L

All the above cases show no particular trend, reason nor do any of the above theories sufficiently prove the
causes for these crimes. The social environment contributes a lot to the making of women criminals. “If people P
have been abused, the chances of their taking to crime are high. But in most cases, it is more to do with the pa- U
triarchal society. Men get women into crime” says psychologist Anchal Bhagat.It appears that female offenders N
have lost faith in social system. Despite constitutional guarantees of equal rights and privileges, women’s fate
could not be changed. Discrimination prevails from birth till last breath. Even her education, her involvement I
in every work equally is not enough to give any credit to her. The problem becomes manifold when despite her S
awareness and ability she is to obey orders of man (in form of father, brother, husband etc.) of lesser ability. Her H
own opinion is brutally crushed overheard and she is subjected to victimization because she is a woman. The
best example I can think of would be of Phoolan Devi- the bandit queen turned politician who life tells us the M
story that when Society and law fail the people, often the victim can turn into a victimizer. Her parents called E
her a flower. That’s what her name Phoolan meant. How did she then turn out to be a thorn in the flesh of so N
many? The question takes us to the sociology of crime, especially in the Indian context. The story of Phoolan
is a parable on our pathology; a case study on how our society spews up the poison that endangers its own life. T
Her abusive childhood turned her that way and we all know that. Therefore we can say, the blame for crimes
committed by women to some extent, if not fully, can be accounted to our system of biases which always weigh
the woman as subordinate. It may also be a possibility that her sudden awareness to her rights and her craze to
prove herself equal to man or it is a revolution against cultural ethos or it’s a mere identity crisis resulting out
of social crises are one of the few reasons which account to a woman’s hand in crime. These compelling fac-
tors such as want of economic independence, recognition in society and to earn her respectable position is what
probably forces these women to resort to these extreme steps of taking law in their hands according to my view.

I conclude that the courts while deciding cases, should look at the reasons and compelling factors which led a
woman to commit that particular crime. As observed in most of the above cases that our unbiased social system
is one of the main reasons why women resort to crime as a retaliation to her suppression the Court should there-
fore import the concepts such as “diminishing responsibility” (as was allowed to Kiranjit Ahaluwalia), battered
women’s syndrome etc. Attention should be paid on providing her with proper medical aid and even on rehabili-
tation. In case a female offender suffers from a mental condition and she comes out of prison after serving her
term, she would probably continue to commit crimes because the problem still subsists in her, and who knows it
would have probably even become from bad to worse.

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