Will sleep peacefully tonight: Father

Asha Devi is happy that her daughter will rest in peace finally. And her husband, Badri Nath Singh, will sleep peacefully on Friday night — four years, four months and 18 days since an evening in 2012 that wrecked the couple’s world.

Devi and Singh let out sighs and tears when the Supreme Court ruled on Friday afternoon that the four rapist-murderers of their daughter will hang to death.

“We waited for this day for four years and I am happy with the verdict. It has restored my faith in the judiciary. It did take long, but we did get justice,” the mother said, regaining her composure in the packed courthouse abuzz with people applauding the judgment.

Her daughter, a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, would have turned 28 on May 10.

“Today’s verdict is a gift for her,” said Singh, who has slept fitfully since five men and a 17-yearold school dropout took turns to rape his daughter and murder her in the most horrific way possible on a bus in New Delhi on December 16, 2012.

“I will sleep peacefully tonight,” he said, but wondered about the fate of other rape victims. “What about justice to those whose cases are pending in courts?”

Devi answered her husband’s question, saying the fight has not ended.

She said at times she felt weak and wanted to give up the fight, but would pull herself up as her daughter’s face flashed in front of her eyes.

CONTINUED ON P 6

Hours after the Supreme Court’s verdict in the December 2012 gang rape case, Bilkis Bano, who was gangraped during the 2002 Gujarat riots when she was five months pregnant, demanded the same punishment in her case too.

“If we have to fight more, we will. We also want to get the same justice,” Bano told HT over the phone on Friday.

The Bombay high court had refused to give the death penalty to three of the 11 people convicted of raping her.

Instead, the court upheld the life sentences of all the 11 accused, besides convicting five policemen and two doctors of complicity.

Bilkis and her husband Yakub have said that they will consult their lawyers on their future course of action.

“In the December 16 case and other cases as well, the court has given the death penalty. No other woman in India should have to face such a ghastly crime. It will act as a deterrent to future crimes...,” Yakub said.

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We have got justice, we were living for this day