Dec 16 rapists to hang: SC
If ever a case called for hanging, this was it: Top court
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court upheld on Friday the death sentence against four men convicted of gangraping and killing a woman in Delhi in 2012, a crime that sparked national outrage and led to stringent laws against sexual violence against women in India.
Applause broke out in the packed courtroom after a threejudge bench threw out an appeal by the convicts, saying the “brutal, barbaric and diabolic” crime had generated a “tsunami of shock” in the society.
“Sympathy in any form would be misplaced and it would shake the confidence of public in the administration of criminal justice system,” said justice R Banumathi, upholding the death sentence given by a fast-track trial court and which was later reconfirmed by the Delhi high court.
Five men and a juvenile brutalised the 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist and her male friend in the back of a moving bus on December 16, 2012. The woman died of her injuries — her internal organs damaged with an iron rod — nearly two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.
Four years ago, one of the convicts was founding hanging in his prison cell. The juvenile, who was months away from turning 18, was released from a reformative home last year.
“The casual manner with which she was treated and the devilish manner in which they played with her identity and dignity is humanly inconceivable,” read out Justice Dipak Misra, who led the bench.
The counsel for the convicts — Mukesh Singh (27), Pawan Gupta (20), Vinay Sharma (21) and Akshay Thakur (29) — said they would file a review petition.