An Indian fast-track court yesterday handed down death sentence to four men convicted of gang raping and brutally murdering an Indian student here in December last year. “Death to all”, pronounced Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna three days after he found the four guilty of a murderous assault which had outraged the entire nation. “Besides discussing other offences, I straightaway come to section 302 [murder] of the Indian Penal Code. This falls under inhuman nature of the convicts and the gravity of the offence they committed cannot be tolerated. Death sentence is given to all the four convicts,” he ordered. The offence committed by Mukesh, 26, Akshay Thakur, 28, Pawan Gupta, 19, and Vinay Sharma, 20, falls under the rarest of rare categories warranting capital punishment, said the judge. There has been a countrywide demand for the four to be executed for their attack on a 23-year-old physiotherapy student and her male companion on board a bus in New Delhi on the night of December 16. After the prosecution lawyers argued on Wednesday that the four persons were guilty of a “diabolical” crime, the victim’s mother wished that the judge hand down the capital punishment. Only the death penalty, said the victim’s father, can bring the family some consolation. During Wednesday’s hearing, defence lawyers argued that the judge should resist “political pressure” and instead jail the gang for life, citing the ages of their clients who are all either in their teens or 20s. Handing down his verdict after a seven-month trial, the court found the men guilty of the “cold-blooded” murder of a “helpless victim.” Her injuries were so severe that she died nearly a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital. She briefly regained consciousness, telling family and friends of her desire to see her attackers burn to death. Lawyers for the four convicts have already said they will appeal the convictions in the Delhi High Court. A juvenile, who was convicted last month for his role in the bus attack, was sentenced to just three years in a correctional facility — the maximum allowed by law.
Posted on: Sat, 14 Sep 2013 06:43:50 +0000
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