Indian rape leads to calls for legal reform Indian feminist groups on Monday called for a thorough overhaul of the criminal justice system to make it more sensitive towards rape victims and raise the low conviction rate of accused rapists. The call for comprehensive legal reforms came as Indian police sealed off a wide area in the heart of New Delhi after a weekend of angry and sometimes violent protests against last week's brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old woman on board a moving bus. The savage assault, which left the victim critically injured and fighting for her life in a New Delhi hospital, has galvanised public opinion in a society normally inured to violence against women. Indian courts issued convictions in less than 30 per cent of the rape cases reported in 2011. Lawyers complain that many judges, steeped in traditional mindsets about what constitutes appropriate behaviour for women, effectively put the rape victims on trial rather than the alleged attackers. "We have to shift the burden from the conduct of the [women] to the conduct of the accused," said Vrinda Grover, a prominent attorney, who spoke alongside other women's rights activists in New Delhi. Sushma Swaraj, a leader of the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, has led calls for the imposition of the death penalty on rapists to bring justice to the victims, who she described in Hindi as "zinda-laash," or the living dead. The government has appointed a three-member judicial committee to review the rape laws and recommend stronger punishments for sexual assault. But many women's rights activists say they oppose imposing death penalty for rape, a crime that already carries the potential of a life sentence. Far more important, they said, are legal and procedural reforms to the police and court system to increase the likelihood that rapists will be punished for their crimes at all. "It's not the severity of the punishment, it's the certainty" said Deepti Sharma, from Saheli, an activist group. Ms Grover added, "we are living in a system where you have a very low conviction rate. The punishment only matters if you can get a conviction. In 2011, India recorded more than 24,000 rape cases, but the alleged assailants were convicted in just 26 per cent, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. Many rape cases also go unreported, as victims and their families fear the stigma of rape in traditionally minded society where a family's honour is still seen as carried in a women's body. Even when women do try to report rapes, activists say police routinely discourage victims from filing complaints, urging them instead to accept financial compensation from their attackers, or even marry them. Ms Grover says police investigation of rape cases is also tainted by conservative police officers" assumption that the women are either lying or invited the attack by behaving inappropriately, an attitude that also colours the views some judges hearing the cases. "The investigation is faulty," she said. You first deal with the prejudice that the woman is telling a lie. A gang rape victim whose assailants were acquitted after a trial that dragged on for four years told an Indian TV channel this week that "it takes great courage for a woman to go to court, and then she is insulted and raped again by the entire system." India's Congress-led government has vowed to take steps to increase women's safety as it seeks to defuse public anger over the gang rape. But activists say they fear the government is simply looking to adopt quick fixes to placate the public. "Our anxiety is that despite the anger, and despite the outrage, the government response is not serious and not constructive," said Ms Grover. Just announcing more severe sentences is not going to make us any safer.