Dear Men, We Are Sorry For Raising Voice Against Nirbhaya, Stop Raping Minor Child Please

She was just 8 month old, fast asleep next to her parents in Indore, was taken away and raped in an empty basement just 200 metres away in the early hours of Friday. The accused, spotted on a CCTV camera carrying the baby on his shoulder, also killed the child after committing the crime, police said. The infant's body was spotted hours later by a shopkeeper who had gone to the basement to open his shop.

Putting up a struggle seems to be futile when rape is increasingly used as an instrument to assert power and intimidate the powerless in India. This is not surprising, many believe, in a hierarchical, patriarchal and increasingly polarised society, where hate is being used to divide people and harvest votes.

An awful sex ratio imbalance - largely because of illegal sex-selection abortions - means it is a country full of men. The country sees 112 boys born for every 100 girls, which is against the natural sex ratio of 105 boys for every 100 girls. A preference for boys has meant that more than 63 million women are statistically "missing". Many believe such skewed ratios can contribute to increased crimes against women.

Indian women have to reconcile themselves with the reality: you save yourself - dress up properly, don't go out unescorted or simply stay at home - or remain unsaved.

What is disturbing is what appears to be the rising number of children who are being targeted. India's crime records show that reported rapes of minor children had more than doubled between 2012 and 2016.

More than 40% of the country's female victims were minor children. The uptick could, however, have something to do with increased and better reporting by the police and media, and widening the definition of rape after the horrific 2012 gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in Delhi.

So has nothing much changed after the 2012 Delhi gang rape sparked global outrage and violent public protests?

It is difficult to say. The good news is that there is higher and better reporting of rape. The bad news is that a shambolic criminal justice system remains vulnerable to political pressures and allows many of the accused to go scot free - only one in four cases of rape in India end in conviction.