NEW DELHI, Sept 13: Death sentence was today awarded to the four convicts in the sensational December 16 gangrape- cum-murder case by a court here which said the “beastly” and “hair-raising” manner in which the crime was committed against a 23-year-old girl falls in the rarest of rare category.
“Accordingly, the convicts be hanged by neck till they are dead,” Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna said after observing that the inhuman and ghastly acts of the convicts shocked the collective conscience of the nation and deserve exemplary punishment, which was pronounced nine months after an agonising wait.
The victim’s family, which had expressed dissatisfaction when the sixth accused, a juvenile, was convicted and sentenced to a maximum of three years in a reformation home by the Juvenile Justice Board, today heaved a sigh of relief on hearing the death penalty for the four adult convicts.
“‘Halak mein saans atki thi, jo ab bahar nikli hai. Mein dhanywaad karti hu desh ke logon ka aur media ka’ (We were waiting with bated breath, now we are relieved. I thank the people of my country and the media),” the victim’s mother said while expressing satisfaction with the death penalty given to the convicts, which the family had been demanding.
Delivering his 20-page order in a packed courtroom, the judge noted that the “ghastly acts” of Mukesh (26), Akshay Thakur (28), Pawan Gupta (19) and Vinay Sharma (20) requires withdrawal of the “protective arm of the community from around them”.
“The crime of such nature against a helpless woman, per se, require exemplary punishment. I may leave here while saying the gravity of the incident depicts the hair-raising beastly and unparalleled behaviour.
“Subjecting of the prosecutrix to inhuman acts of torture before her death had not only shocked the collective conscience but calls for withdrawal of the protective arm of the community from around the convicts. This ghastly act of the convicts definitely fits this case in the bracket of rarest of rare cases,” the judge said.
The court said “the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances in the case.”
Hearing that they have been sent to gallows, a shocked Vinay started crying while the other three-Mukesh, Pawan and Akshay-sought mercy.
The death penalty reference has been sent to the Delhi High Court for confirmation.
The “severity” of the injuries and the “unprovoked” suffering inflicted upon the “defenceless” victim were relied upon by the court while handing down the capital punishment.
“Convicts in pursuance of their conspiracy lured the victims into the bus, brutally gangraped the prosecutrix, inflicted inhuman torture and threw the defenceless victims out of the moving bus in naked condition, profusely bleeding in a cold winter night; their unprovoked crime demonstrated exceptional depravity of mind.
“Her intestines were so severely damaged and the suffering inflicted on the prosecutrix was unparalleled. The brutality caused to her internal organs is extreme as is evident from the medical evidence on record and hence the act of convicts call for extreme penalty,” it said.
Weighing the factors against and in favour of the convicts in deciding the punishment, the court said the aggravating circumstances are that the offence was committed in an extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical, revolting and thus dastardly manner so as to arouse intense and extreme indignation of society.
He said the manner of crime demonstrated exceptional depravity and extreme brutality by which extreme misery was inflicted upon the girl before her death leading to grave impact on social order.
The mitigating circumstances noted by the judge included the young age of the convicts, their socio economic status, citing which they had sought a chance for reformation, and their clean antecedents.
The court concluded that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances.
While applying the test of rarest of rare, the court said, “The facts show that entire intestine of the prosecutrix was perforated, splayed and cut open due to repeated insertions of rods and hands.
“The convicts, in the most barbaric manner, pulled out her internal organs with their bare hands as well as by the rods and caused her irreparable injuries, thus exhibiting extreme mental perversion not worthy of human condonation.”
“It rather shows the beastly behaviour of convicts. Further, the convicts did not stop after pulling out her internal organs after the crime of gangrape/unnatural sex but then had dragged the victims to the rear door of the bus to be thrown out and when the rear door was found jammed, the victims were dragged by their hairs to the front door and thrown out of the moving bus,” the judge said.
The court also observed that with the rise in offences against women, the judiciary cannot turn a blind eye to the need to send a strong deterrent message to the perpetrators of such crimes and that there will be no tolerance of any form of deviance against women.
“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.
“The increasing trend of crimes against women can be arrested only once the society realize that there will be no tolerance from any form of deviance against women and more so in extreme cases of brutality such as the present one and hence the criminal justice system must instil confidence in the minds of people especially the women,” it said.
The court said that the four men are not convicted only on account of conspiracy but also for their “overt” acts.
On the night of December 16 last year, six persons-Ram Singh, Vinay, Akshay, Pawan, Mukesh and a juvenile-had gangraped the paramedic student in a moving bus in South Delhi after luring her and her 28-year-old male friend, who was also assaulted, on board the vehicle, which was later found to be plying illegally on the national capital’s roads.
The victim’s friend, a software engineer, suffered fractures in his limbs. The girl succumbed to her injuries on December 29, 2012 at a Singapore hospital.
The convicts were awarded death sentence for the offence of murder and life term for gangraping the girl. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 55,000 on each of them.
Apart from murder and gangrape of the victim, the four men were also convicted on September 10 for attempting to kill her male friend, as well as kidnapping and robbing them.
Ram Singh (34) was found dead in the prison cell in March and proceedings against him were abated. The juvenile accused was on August 31 convicted and sentenced to a maximum of three years in a reformation home.
The incident had shook the nation’s conscience and sparked massive protests. It had prompted a number of steps by the Centre and the Delhi government to ensure safety of women, curb such incidents and facilitate quick disposal of such cases.
The court rejected the plea of Mukesh that he had helped the system by admitting his presence in the bus at the time of the incident and said “it is probably to seek misplaced mercy as he took this contradictory stand in his statement under section 313 CrPC to save himself after he found the chain of circumstances being proved against him too.” (PTI)
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