By Garima Tyagi
New Delhi, Dec 13 (IANS): Two years after a 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist was brutally gang-raped on a moving bus on Dec 16, 2012, an incident that sent shock waves across the nation and gave India a bad name, the family of the victim is still waiting for the four convicted rapists to be sent to the gallows.
After the convicts moved the Supreme Court, it stayed the execution of their death sentences. With only three-four effective hearings in the case by the apex court since March 2014, the case is expected to take some time to reach its logical conclusion.
The advocates representing the convicts. They however want their case to be heard in detail with "no preconceived notions".
But for the family of the victim, it is a long wait.
"If the government wants to send a clear message to those who are still committing
such crimes then my daughter's attackers should have been punished by now," the victim's father told IANS.
He said in the Dec 5 rape case also, the Uber cab driver had threatened the victim that he would "insert a rod in her" to subdue her.
"Rapists like him have no fear of law. If the four had been hanged then there would have been some fear and it would have helped in avoiding other rapes," he added.
But the lawyers of the accused obviously want to delay the case.
"I want the case to get over early but it should be heard in detail. It should not be a one-sided game. I am not against the victim or justice, but I am against the punishment to innocent people," advocate M.L. Sharma, who represents two of the convicts, Mukesh and Pawan, told IANS.
Claiming his clients have been falsely implicated in the case, Sharma added: "I know they are innocent, which I have to prove; and for the sake of justice the court should not hear the case in a hasty manner."
A Delhi fast track court had on Sep 13, 2013, awarded death sentence to four of the accused - Mukesh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma - on 11 counts, including gang rape, murder, dacoity, unnatural offences and destruction of evidence. All the four are in jail.
The Delhi High Court March 13, 2014 upheld their death sentence.
On March 15, 2104 the Supreme Court decided to keep on hold the execution of the death sentence of Mukesh and Pawan Gupta, and on July 14 it suspended the death sentence of the other two convicts, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur.
Pleading innocence, the convicts have contended before the Supreme Court that their trial was "not free and fair". Describing the entire trial as "miscarriage of justice", their lawyers said the trial that started Jan 21, 2013 was under "public/political pressure" with the "object to hang them".
The young woman was brutally gang raped by six people, including a minor, in a
moving bus2. The rapists also robbed the victim and her male friend and then threw them out in the night to die. The victim died of grave injuries Dec 29, 2012, at Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital, where she had been airlifted for specialised treatment.
While the minor was sent to a reform home for three years, one of the main accused – Ram Singh - committed suicide in prison.
While upholding the death sentence of the four convicts, the the high court rejected the plea by the victim's parents and of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy that the juvenile offender be tried by a regular court and not by the Juvenile Justice Board, which sent him to a correctional home for three years.
Advocate A.P. Singh, who appears for Akshay and Vinay, echoed Sharma. "We don't want a hasty judgment this time. We are not concerned about how much time the Supreme Court will take to wrap up the case, but we would like our case to be heard in detail."
Not just the gang-rape, the four convicts are facing trial for allegedly beating up and robbing carpenter Ram Adhar before committing the brutal crime. The case is at the stage of recording the statements of defence witnesses, and the four have denied
the allegations.
Charges of cheating have also been framed against the owner of the bus in which
the gang-rape was committed.