NEW DELHI // Four young men who gang raped a 23-year-old university student, inflicting massive internal injuries that later killed her, were sentenced yesterday to death by hanging.
The gang rape on December 16 aboard a bus in Delhi sparked outrage and soul-searching across India and brought a glare of embarrassing international attention to the problem of rampant, unpunished sexual violence against women in the world's second most populous country.
In handing down the death sentence against the men – low-paid migrants to New Delhi, mostly in their 20s – Judge Yogesh Khanna seemed acutely aware of the gravity of the case.
The attack, he said, "shocked the collective conscience" of India. "In these times, when crime against women is on the rise, the courts cannot turn a blind eye towards such gruesome crimes."
Crowds of onlookers outside the packed courtroom burst into applause after Judge Khanna passed down the sentence. Inside, one of the defendants, Vinay Sharma, 20, sobbed as he was led away by guards.
"Judge sahib (master), show some mercy!" he shouted.
Also sentenced to the gallows were Akshay Thakur, 28, Pawan Gupta, 19, and Mukesh Singh, in his early 20s. All four men were found guilty of rape and murder on Tuesday. Ram Singh, 33, another man implicated in the attack, hung himself in prison, authorities say.
An 18-year-old man who was a juvenile at the time of the attack and cannot be identified under Indian law, was convicted in August and will serve three years in a reform home.
Signing the death sentence, Judge Khanna broke the nib of his pen – a custom to convey a judge's hope that such extreme punishments will not be necessary in the future.
Like all death sentences, the order must be confirmed by India's High Court. The men can appeal their case to the High Court, as well as to the Supreme Court, and finally ask the president for clemency.
On hearing the sentence the mother of the victim stood up in court and said: "We held our breaths for so long. We can finally breathe. My daughter can now rest in peace."
She was accompanied by other family members including the victim's father and two teenage brothers.
The young woman and her male companion were attacked on the night of December 16 after watching the film, Life of Pi, at a cinema in a mall. The pair were trying to make their way home when they were lured on to the bus.
The man was beaten and the woman raped for almost an hour, tortured and beaten with iron rods as the bus passed through some of Delhi's busiest streets and through police check points. The pair were then thrown off the bus bloodied and barely conscious.
Her death, two weeks later in a Singapore hospital, from the massive internal injuries inflicted on her by the six men led to waves of protests and an outpouring of anger about how women are treated in Indian society. The incident led to more stringent laws to protect women from violence and the establishment of fast-track courts, like the one that sentenced the men yesterday seven months after the trial began.
Defence lawyers for all four convicted men yesterday said they will appeal the sentence, a process that is lengthy and will take years.
"This is an error in judgement. The courts did not respect the evidence" said VK Anand, a defence lawyer for Mukesh Singh, who occasionally drove and cleaned the bus.
"This is not the victory of truth. But it is the defeat of justice," AP Singh, the defence lawyer for Thakur and Sharma, shouted in court when the judge read out the sentence. "The judge has taken the decision under political pressure without considering facts," Mr Singh said later.
The convicted men insisted throughout that they did not commit the crime. Their lawyers claimed during the trial that Mukesh was simply driving the bus, Gupta and Sharma were at a music festival together the night of the attack and Thakur was at his village in Bihar state. Judge Khanna, in a 237-page verdict said that DNA and forensic evidence proved the men were guilty.
Police had barricaded the roads and entrance to the courthouse yesterday. Still, cheers erupted outside the courtroom as the sentence was announced.
Manoj Kumar, 42, had brought along his daughter, Sanskriti, 10, who was still in her blue-and-white checked school uniform.
"It was one of the hardest moments in my life last year when I had to explain to my daughter what exactly happened to that young lady on the bus," Mr Kumar said. "Today she came back from school and asked me to take her to see the court to hear the decision."
"I am happy they will be hanged for hurting that lady," Sanskriti said.
Sukhbira Kumari, in her 60s along with her two sisters-in-law, from Ashok Vihar in north Delhi, stood behind the police barricade outside the doors of courtroom 304, and waited for the sentencing.
"This trial should have taken exactly the amount of the time they took to torture that girl," Mrs Kumari said. "Even if they are hanged, they will never feel the pain of what they did to her."
The four men will now be taken to Tihar jail in west Delhi where they will be held on death row. This is the same jail where they have been held since their arrest in December.
sbhattacharya@thenational.ae
