India gang rape trial: Four men sentenced to death

An Indian police van believed to be carrying the accused arrives at the Saket Court Complex in New Delhi today. Picture: AFP

They are to be hanged for the attack last December on a moving bus that left the young woman with such severe internal injuries that she died two weeks later.

The death sentence, handed down in a New Delhi court yesterday, must be confirmed by India’s High Court. They can appeal to the Supreme Court, and ask the president for clemency.

“These are the times when gruesome crimes against women have become rampant, and courts cannot turn a blind eye to the need to send a strong deterrent message to the perpetrators of such crimes,” Judge Yogesh Khanna said in a ruling that capped one of the most notorious criminal trials in modern Indian history.

Cheers went up from a crowd inside and outside the courthouse when lawyers rushed out to announce the sentence, which had been widely expected after Mr Khanna found the men guilty this week of “cold-blooded” rape and murder.

The student, who was raped for an hour and tortured with an iron rod, became a symbol of the dangers women face in a country where a rape is reported on average every 21 minutes and acid attacks and cases of molestation are common.

“The increasing trend of crimes against women can be arrested only once society realises that there will be no tolerance [of] any form of deviance against women,” said Mr Khanna.

He ordered the men to “be hanged by neck till they are dead”.

In a symbolic gesture, he broke the nib of the pen so that it could not be used to sign another death order, court officials said. Lawyers for all four men said they would appeal, which means their execution could still be years away.

“Today, we can breathe a little easier,” said the victim’s mother, who hugged a police officer outside court after the sentence was read.

“The way they hurt my daughter, I wanted them hurt, too,” the father told reporters.

The sentencing was the climax of a seven-month trial, often held behind closed doors, that was punctuated dramatically by a fifth defendant hanging himself in his jail cell. A sixth, who was under 18 at the time of the attack, was earlier sentenced to three years’ detention, the maximum allowed under juvenile law.

In calling for the four to be hanged, prosecutor Dayan Krishnan said the attack shocked India’s “collective conscience”. He said: “There can be nothing more diabolic than a helpless girl put through torture.”

India’s Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty should be used only in “the rarest of rare cases”, though what defines those cases remains highly debated.

By most estimates, more than 100 people are sentenced to death in India in most years, but the vast majority of those cases are eventually commuted to life in prison.

After the death sentence was passed, one of the four men, 20-year-old Vinay Sharma, broke down in tears.

Under intense pressure, the Congress Party-led national government worked hard to project a tough-on-crime image after the attack, reforming a series of laws on sexual violence. Many in the party, which faces dwindling support, had made clear they wanted the men to be executed.

Many have expressed hope the case will help change traditional attitudes that relegate women to subservient roles and contribute to a landscape of sexual harassment and fear.

PROFILE

Vinay Sharma

THE only one with a school education and able to speak English, Sharma was a 20-year-old gym assistant and fitness trainer.

According to his mother, he worked hard at school, achieved good marks, particularly in English, and had handed most of his salary to help support his family.

He lived in the Ravi Dass slum not far from the house of Ram Singh.

While in prison, he had requested a month’s bail so that he could sit his first-year university exams. However, this was turned down by the judge, who instead insisted that the university and jail authorities made arrangements for him to sit his exams in the prison.

During the trial, Sharma had claimed that he had not been on the bus when the rape took place, and that he had gone to a music function along with his co-accused Pawan Gupta.

Pawan Gupta

The 19-year-old fruit seller claimed that he was not involved in the rape, was not on the bus and had gone to a music event with his co-accused Vinay Sharma.

During the trial, his father, Heera Lal, had taken the witness stand to testify to Gupta’s innocence, insisting that he had been “falsely implicated”.

In evidence, Mr Lal had said that on the day of the crime the teenager had closed his shop during the afternoon and then returned home.

He said that after eating some chicken and consuming alcohol, Gupta had gone to a nearby park where a music function was taking place.

Mr Lal added that he went to the park with his brother-in-law and took him home.

According to reports, after his arrest he said that he had “done a horrible thing, I have done a bad thing and I should be hanged”, but his lawyer later denied he had he had made the statement.

Akshay Thakur

Thakur had been a 28-year-old helper on the bus where the crime took place.

He was arrested five days after the incident took place at his home in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.

In addition to being convicted for rape, murder and kidnapping, Thakur was also found guilty of trying to destroy evidence by helping to wash out the bus after the attack.

He had moved to Delhi last year, and was reported to be married and a had a two-year-old son. His family have remained back in his home village in Bihar during the trial.

During the trial he had denied being on the bus and claimed instead that he had left the city on 15 December – a day before the crime – and reached his village in Bihar the next day. Despite his claim of an alibi, Thakur was found guilty. Friends of the man said he was a “simple man”, but they believed the effect of living in a large city like Delhi had “turned him into a beast”.

Mukesh Singh

The younger brother of deceased accused Ram Singh, Mukesh Singh had lived with his brother in a two-room shack in the Ravi Dass slum.

Picking up work as an occasional driver and cleaner on the bus, he was also charged with hitting the victim and her boyfriend with a iron bar, charges that he had denied during the case.

It was claimed during the case that it was he, not his brother, who had been driving the bus when they picked up the couple.

He, his defence was reported to have insisted, had been driving the bus and it was the other five who carried out the rape and assaulted the couple.

His lawyer claimed that Singh had been abused and tortured in jail, charges where denied.

The others

Ram Singh, described by police as the main suspect, was found dead in Tihar jail in March.

Police said he had hanged himself, but defence lawyers and his family allege he was murdered.

A sixth defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was tried as a minor, as he was 17 at the time, and jailed for three years.