UPSC Darpan

SocietyGS124 September 2026

After Astha Kunj Gang-Rape, L-G Orders Park Safety Audits; DURGA Reserves E-Autos for Women, Transgender Persons

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The news

New Delhi. Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) Taranjit Singh Sandhu on Wednesday, September 23, directed the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to conduct safety audits of public parks across the Capital, after a 17-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped on Monday at Astha Kunj Park near Kalkaji Mandir in south-east Delhi by three men who posed as police personnel. All three were arrested on Tuesday and remanded to two-day judicial custody on Wednesday; one was shot in the leg in what police describe as an exchange of fire. The order followed a review with the MCD Commissioner, the Commissioner of Police and the DDA Vice-Chairman. A release from Lok Niwas, the L-G’s office, says the audit will examine lighting, guards at all entry and exit points, patrolling inside parks, particularly after sunset, and sanitation, and will consider handing some parks to residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) or private entities for upkeep. The DDA will identify “dark spots” — unlit, unwatched stretches — add lighting and CCTV, may restrict late-evening entry in multi-gate parks to selected gates, and will coordinate with the police; The Indian Express adds that the DDA and MCD must report within a week. Police say 379 people were apprehended under Section 65 of the Delhi Police Act in drives across the Central Range. Citing sources, The Indian Express reports that one accused was a former police informer once caught for eve-teasing but released because no complaint was filed. Students of Lady Shri Ram College for Women (LSR), near the site, marched on Wednesday evening; The Hindu describes hundreds of LSR students in a women-only march, The Indian Express around 200 students from several Delhi University colleges. “We want freedom from rape culture, moral policing and patriarchy,” one student said. At an online meeting, LSR students had flagged missing PCR vans, a non-functional police Pink Booth and dark roads. The same day, the Delhi Cabinet approved the ‘DURGA’ scheme: 1,300 pink electric autos in phase one, 1,170 for women and 130 for transgender persons, capped at 90 and 10 per revenue district, for Delhi residents aged 20 to 40 with a voter ID, a driving licence and a public service vehicle (PSV) badge; women with more than three children are ineligible. The syllabus link is GS1 on women and urbanisation, and GS2 on schemes for vulnerable sections.

The chain in one line: Delhi’s parks are kept by the DDA and the MCD but patrolled by a police force answerable to the Union Home Ministry → dark, thinly guarded stretches and a locally known offender never formally booked → a teenager is gang-raped at Astha Kunj Park by men posing as police → LSR students march and list a non-functional Pink Booth, missing PCR vans and unlit roads → the L-G orders park safety audits with a one-week report, and the Delhi Cabinet clears DURGA e-autos reserved for women and transgender drivers

Static syllabus linkage

  1. The law forbids revealing a rape survivor’s identity, and protects a minor twice over. Section 72 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), which replaces Section 228A of the Indian Penal Code, punishes printing or publishing the name, or anything that may make known the identity, of a victim of rape and related offences with up to two years’ imprisonment and a fine. Where the victim is under 18, Section 23 of the POCSO Act, 2012 also bars the media from disclosing the child’s name, address, photograph, family details, school or neighbourhood. In Nipun Saxena v. Union of India (2018), the Supreme Court held that the identity must not be disclosed even in a remote manner. Section 70(2) of the BNS prescribes imprisonment for the remainder of natural life, or death, for the gang rape of a woman under 18.
  2. The Nirbhaya Fund and the Safe City Projects are the Union’s money for women’s safety in public space. The Nirbhaya Fund was announced in the Union Budget 2013-14 with ₹1,000 crore, after the December 16, 2012 gang rape in Delhi; the Justice J.S. Verma Committee’s report that followed shaped the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013. The fund is non-lapsable and administered by the Department of Economic Affairs, while the Ministry of Women and Child Development is the nodal ministry that appraises projects. From it, the Union Home Ministry in 2018 sanctioned Safe City Projects for eight cities — Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow and Mumbai — for lighting, CCTV, women’s help desks and command centres. One Stop Centres for survivors also draw on it.
  3. Safety audits and CPTED treat violence in public space partly as a design failure. The women’s safety audit was developed in Toronto in 1989 by the Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children (METRAC): women walk a space and record lighting, sightlines, isolation and access to help. In Delhi, the women’s resource centre Jagori adapted the method, and in 2010 Delhi was among the first cities in UN Women’s Safe Cities Global Initiative, with Quito, Cairo, Port Moresby and Kigali. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) rests on natural surveillance, access control, territorial reinforcement and maintenance, building on Jane Jacobs’s “eyes on the street” (1961). In Why Loiter? (2011), Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade argue that women are safer when they may be in public space for any reason, not only a purposeful one. Under the Twelfth Schedule (Article 243W), parks, gardens and playgrounds, and street lighting, are municipal functions.
  4. The Transgender Persons Act, 2019 obliges governments to design schemes that include transgender persons. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 defines a transgender person as one whose gender does not match the gender assigned at birth, including trans men, trans women, persons with intersex variations and those with socio-cultural identities such as kinner and hijra. Section 3 prohibits discrimination in education, employment, healthcare, access to public facilities and the right to movement. The District Magistrate issues a certificate of identity, and a National Council for Transgender Persons is chaired by the Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment. The Act builds on National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India (2014), in which the Supreme Court recognised the right to self-identify one’s gender and directed that transgender persons be treated as socially and educationally backward classes.

Why UPSC loves this

  1. GS1 keeps asking about women and the city, not only women and the law. The GS1 syllabus lists “role of women and women’s organization” and “urbanization, their problems and their remedies”. In 2019 UPSC asked, “What are the continued challenges for women in India against time and space?” — which this story answers directly. Answers that cite design, lighting, transport and the right to be in public space score better than lists of penal sections.
  2. GS2 tests institutions and schemes for vulnerable sections, and Delhi’s split governance. The GS2 syllabus covers “welfare schemes for vulnerable sections” and “mechanisms, laws, institutions and bodies” for their protection. The Nirbhaya Fund’s administering ministry, the Transgender Act’s identity certificate and the NALSA judgment are the provision-level facts Prelims draws on. Article 239AA, a recurring GS2 topic, explains why the park audit came from Lok Niwas and the e-auto scheme from the Delhi Cabinet.
  3. Ethics papers use such cases to test privacy, dignity and restraint. GS4 case studies often place the candidate as an officer under media pressure after a sexual assault; the bar on disclosing identity and the reported encounter test dignity, transparency and restraint in the use of force.

Prelims nuggets

  • Section 72 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which replaced Section 228A of the Indian Penal Code, punishes the disclosure of the identity of a victim of rape and related offences with imprisonment of up to two years and a fine.
  • Section 23 of the POCSO Act, 2012 prohibits the media from disclosing the identity of a child victim, including name, address, photograph, family details, school and neighbourhood.
  • The Nirbhaya Fund, announced in the Union Budget 2013-14, is a non-lapsable fund administered by the Department of Economic Affairs; the Ministry of Women and Child Development is its nodal ministry.
  • Safe City Projects under the Nirbhaya Fund were sanctioned by the Ministry of Home Affairs for eight cities: Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow and Mumbai.
  • Under the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, the certificate of identity is issued by the District Magistrate, and the National Council for Transgender Persons is chaired by the Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment.
  • Under Article 239AA(3)(a), public order, police and land (Entries 1, 2 and 18 of the State List) lie outside the law-making power of the Legislative Assembly of Delhi.
  • The Twelfth Schedule (Article 243W) lists parks, gardens and playgrounds, and public amenities including street lighting, among the functions that may be devolved to municipalities.

Analysis

  1. An audit of lamps and guards will not find the offender everyone already knew about. The audit checklist is sensible, but the reporting points to a different failure. The Indian Express says one accused had been caught for eve-teasing and let go because no complaint was filed, park guards called him a local strongman, and the DCP (South-East), Vineet Kumar, said police staff “have details of all local ruffians”, including him. The knowledge existed; the system could not act without a formal complaint, which harassed women rarely file. An audit that counts bulbs but creates no channel for informal reports, such as a help desk that logs non-FIR complaints, fixes the visible gap and leaves the real one. The counter-view is fair: policing by reputation can slide into arbitrary harassment, so such a channel must lead to documented warnings, not extra-legal punishment.
  2. Men posing as police succeeded because moral policing has taught young people to fear the uniform. The accused, the papers report, posed as police and used police terminology, and The Indian Express, citing sources, says they threatened a POCSO case. Teenagers stopped by ‘police’ in a park comply rather than call for help because they have learnt that authority in parks harasses young people; the LSR slogan against “moral policing” names this link precisely. The 22nd Law Commission in 2023 advised against lowering the age of consent from 18, which keeps adolescent companionship legally fraught and open to such blackmail. Moralistic patrolling of parks may therefore make impersonation easier, not harder. The counter-view is that visible policing deters predators, which is true, but only when park users trust the uniform to protect rather than question them.
  3. Closing gates after dark and handing parks to RWAs treats women’s presence as the problem. The DDA may restrict late-evening entry in multi-gate parks, and officials have been asked to examine handing some parks to RWAs or private entities. Both reduce risk by reducing use, yet the logic of Jane Jacobs and of Why Loiter? is that busy, open spaces are the safer ones. RWA management often means locked gates and the quiet exclusion of domestic workers, vendors and the poor, privatising a public good the Twelfth Schedule assigns to municipalities. Likewise, 379 people apprehended under Section 65 of the Delhi Police Act measures activity, not safety. The counter-view is that some parks are unmanageable at night with current staff, and RWAs do improve upkeep; the fair test is whether the audit ends with more lights and footfall, or with more locks.
  4. Delhi’s safety is divided by the Constitution, and coordination is standing in for accountability. Under Article 239AA, police and land lie with the Union through the L-G, who also chairs the DDA; the MCD answers to its own elected house; transport and women’s welfare sit with the elected Delhi government. The same day brought the L-G’s audits and the Cabinet’s DURGA, parallel tracks with no common owner. A one-week report from two agencies invites a tick-box exercise; the better design is one accountable agency per park, a published audit with a named officer, and repeat audits by women users on the Jagori model. The counter-view is that the L-G’s direct control of the police and the DDA produced a response within 48 hours, which a fully devolved city might not manage.
  5. DURGA is a livelihood scheme dressed as a safety scheme, and its eligibility rules decide whether it is either. The Chief Minister’s Office pitches DURGA as both “dignified self-employment” and women’s safety. Its eligibility — age 20 to 40, a driving licence and a PSV badge — selects women already in the transport trade, where few women are, so without a training pipeline the 1,300 autos may lack drivers. The bar on women with more than three children is defensible in law, since the Supreme Court upheld a two-child norm for panchayat candidates in Javed v. State of Haryana (2003), but it sits oddly in a livelihood scheme. The 130 autos for transgender persons are a real step towards the inclusion the 2019 Act demands. The counter-view is strong: women drivers make women passengers feel safer at night, and women at the wheel normalise women’s presence in public space, a deeper cure than any park audit.

Possible Mains question

“Responses to violence against women in Indian cities rely heavily on surveillance and policing, while the design and use of public space receive less attention.” Critically examine this statement in the light of recent measures in Delhi. What would a gender-sensitive framework for safe public spaces include? (15 marks, 250 words)

Model approach

  1. Introduction. Open with the Astha Kunj Park gang rape and the L-G’s order of September 23 for safety audits of public parks, due within a week, as an example of policy made after a crime.
  2. Body — the surveillance-and-policing track. Describe CCTV, lighting of dark spots, beat patrols and area-domination drives in which 379 people were apprehended under Section 65 of the Delhi Police Act, linked to the Nirbhaya Fund and Safe City Projects. Note the limits: a known offender released for want of a complaint, a non-functional Pink Booth, and sweeps that measure activity, not safety.
  3. Body — the design-and-use track. Explain women’s safety audits (METRAC, Jagori, UN Women Safe Cities), CPTED and the Why Loiter? argument for the right to public space. Contrast gate closures and RWA handovers with measures that raise footfall, such as DURGA’s women and transgender drivers, noting its eligibility limits.
  4. Body — the governance fix. Point to Delhi’s split under Article 239AA and the Twelfth Schedule functions of parks and street lighting. Propose one accountable agency per park, published audits by women users, a channel for non-FIR complaints, campus safety-advisory protocols, and strict protection of identity under Section 72 BNS and Section 23 POCSO.
  5. Conclusion. Conclude that policing catches offenders after the fact while design and use prevent opportunities, and that a city is safe for women when they can use its spaces at any hour for any reason.

Administrator's brainstorm

You are the District Magistrate of South-East Delhi. The audit report is due in a week. What do you do?

I would not let the audit be a desk exercise by two engineering wings. Each park would be walked after sunset by a team including neighbourhood women, LSR students and park staff, using a simple safety-audit sheet, with dark spots mapped. Quick fixes — lights, trimmed bushes, working gates, a functioning Pink Booth — would be done within the week under named officers. A complaint number at every gate would ensure that harassment which never becomes an FIR is still recorded and followed up.

As the Deputy Commissioner of Police, a television channel asks you for details of the survivor and her family to ‘humanise’ the story. How do you respond?

I would refuse, and say why: Section 72 of the BNS makes disclosure of a rape victim’s identity an offence, and because she is a minor, Section 23 of the POCSO Act bars the media from disclosing her name, school, neighbourhood or family. The public legitimately needs to know about arrests, the investigation and safety measures, which I would share through regular briefings, while warning my own staff that leaks are punishable. Transparency about the case and silence about the survivor are not in conflict.

An interview board asks: should a livelihood scheme like DURGA exclude women with more than three children?

I would say the condition works against the scheme’s purpose. The women most in need of self-employment are often those with larger families and less say over fertility, so the bar punishes the woman without influencing any decision. Courts have upheld such norms for elected office, but a livelihood scheme exists to widen opportunity. If the aim is smaller families, education and health services for women achieve it far better than eligibility bars.