Police are set to bring formal murder charges against six men accused of gang-raping a woman aboard a bus in New Delhi amid protests demanding a rapid overhaul of how sexual assaults are prosecuted in India.
Charges are expected to be filed tomorrow in a court in the Indian capital, according to police spokesman Rajan Bhagat. One of the accused may be a juvenile and as a result subject to a separate judicial process. The six are alleged by police to have beaten and assaulted the 23-year-old physiotherapy student on Dec. 16 before throwing her and a male companion from the vehicle as it drove along city streets.
The woman’s death nearly two weeks later in a Singapore hospital fueled street demonstrations demanding the government and police crack down on sex crimes, speed up the prosecution of alleged rapists and toughen sentencing. A three-judge panel headed by the Supreme Court Chief Justice Altamas Kabir will tomorrow begin hearing a petition seeking the setting up of fast-track courts in all states to handle serious sexual offenses, Pareena Swarup, an advocate in the court, said.
“In this case the government is reacting exceptionally fast because of public protests,” said Ranjana Kumari, director of the New Delhi-based Centre for Social Research. “There should be change in our legal system so that other victims, who are waiting for justice, get similar treatment.”
Breaking with precedent, the rape case will be heard on a day-to-day basis once it begins in a bid to meet calls for swift justice. Other fast-track courts will begin sitting in New Delhi this week.
[h=2]Brutal Assault[/h]“It will be our endeavor to ensure the harshest punishment in the book for the culprits,” Dharmendra Kumar, special commissioner of police, said Dec. 29, hours after the death of the woman, who hasn’t been named. Kumar said police added the section of India’s penal code relating to murder to the case.
On the eve of tomorrow’s hearing, new details emerged of the brutal assault that has triggered weeks of soul-searching in New Delhi and beyond.
The victims boarded the bus without knowing it was plying illegally, the Press Trust of India news agency reported, citing interviews with police officers it did not name. The suspects first attacked the 28-year-old man and when the woman intervened to protect him, she was beaten and sexually assaulted, it said.
After throwing both from the bus, the driver attempted to run them down, the agency reported. The assailants told police they had raped the woman “to teach her a lesson” after she fought back in a confrontation, the Indian Express newspaper reported Dec. 19.
[h=2]Silent March[/h]The woman, who was flown to Singapore for treatment paid for by the Indian government, died in hospital Dec. 29. She was cremated a day later and her ashes have been submerged in the Ganges river, considered holy by India’s Hindu majority.
The doctor who carried out the postmortem in Singapore will be among 30 witnesses the police plan to cite in the charge sheet, Press Trust said.
The attack, blanket media coverage and the continuing demonstrations have thrust crimes against women to the top of India’s political agenda. Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today led a silent march in the capital today.
“We have already seen the emotions and energies this incident has generated,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in an e-mailed statement Dec. 29. It’s up to all Indians to “ensure that her death will not have been in vain.”
[h=2]Bloated Courts[/h]Singh has appointed a retired Delhi High Court judge to investigate the crime and suggest ways to fix lapses in policing. He also asked a panel headed by a former chief justice to rewrite criminal codes to allow harsher penalties to be imposed, including capital punishment in the “rarest of rare” rape cases.
The government yesterday announced a 13-member task force headed by the secretary of the home ministry to examine the safety of women in Delhi on a regular basis. Dikshit’s government has opened a telephone helpline to help women in distress.
Indian courts can hand down the death penalty for murder, while rape has a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Typically in India it takes years for ordinary Indians to get justice because of a slow-moving legal process and overburdened courts. About 63,342 cases were pending in the Supreme Court as of July 31, of which 67 percent have been in process for more than a year, government data show.
To contact the reporters on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at [email protected]; Pratap Patnaik in New Delhi at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Hari Govind at [email protected]
Enlarge image
[h=3]Delhi Bus Rape Accused Face Murder Charge as India Seeks Justice[/h]
Indian protestors shout anti-government slogans during a protest against rape in New Delhi. Raveendran/AFP/Getty Images
Indian protestors shout anti-government slogans during a protest against rape in New Delhi. Raveendran/AFP/Getty Images
Charges are expected to be filed tomorrow in a court in the Indian capital, according to police spokesman Rajan Bhagat. One of the accused may be a juvenile and as a result subject to a separate judicial process. The six are alleged by police to have beaten and assaulted the 23-year-old physiotherapy student on Dec. 16 before throwing her and a male companion from the vehicle as it drove along city streets.
The woman’s death nearly two weeks later in a Singapore hospital fueled street demonstrations demanding the government and police crack down on sex crimes, speed up the prosecution of alleged rapists and toughen sentencing. A three-judge panel headed by the Supreme Court Chief Justice Altamas Kabir will tomorrow begin hearing a petition seeking the setting up of fast-track courts in all states to handle serious sexual offenses, Pareena Swarup, an advocate in the court, said.
“In this case the government is reacting exceptionally fast because of public protests,” said Ranjana Kumari, director of the New Delhi-based Centre for Social Research. “There should be change in our legal system so that other victims, who are waiting for justice, get similar treatment.”
Breaking with precedent, the rape case will be heard on a day-to-day basis once it begins in a bid to meet calls for swift justice. Other fast-track courts will begin sitting in New Delhi this week.
[h=2]Brutal Assault[/h]“It will be our endeavor to ensure the harshest punishment in the book for the culprits,” Dharmendra Kumar, special commissioner of police, said Dec. 29, hours after the death of the woman, who hasn’t been named. Kumar said police added the section of India’s penal code relating to murder to the case.
On the eve of tomorrow’s hearing, new details emerged of the brutal assault that has triggered weeks of soul-searching in New Delhi and beyond.
The victims boarded the bus without knowing it was plying illegally, the Press Trust of India news agency reported, citing interviews with police officers it did not name. The suspects first attacked the 28-year-old man and when the woman intervened to protect him, she was beaten and sexually assaulted, it said.
After throwing both from the bus, the driver attempted to run them down, the agency reported. The assailants told police they had raped the woman “to teach her a lesson” after she fought back in a confrontation, the Indian Express newspaper reported Dec. 19.
[h=2]Silent March[/h]The woman, who was flown to Singapore for treatment paid for by the Indian government, died in hospital Dec. 29. She was cremated a day later and her ashes have been submerged in the Ganges river, considered holy by India’s Hindu majority.
The doctor who carried out the postmortem in Singapore will be among 30 witnesses the police plan to cite in the charge sheet, Press Trust said.
The attack, blanket media coverage and the continuing demonstrations have thrust crimes against women to the top of India’s political agenda. Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today led a silent march in the capital today.
“We have already seen the emotions and energies this incident has generated,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in an e-mailed statement Dec. 29. It’s up to all Indians to “ensure that her death will not have been in vain.”
[h=2]Bloated Courts[/h]Singh has appointed a retired Delhi High Court judge to investigate the crime and suggest ways to fix lapses in policing. He also asked a panel headed by a former chief justice to rewrite criminal codes to allow harsher penalties to be imposed, including capital punishment in the “rarest of rare” rape cases.
The government yesterday announced a 13-member task force headed by the secretary of the home ministry to examine the safety of women in Delhi on a regular basis. Dikshit’s government has opened a telephone helpline to help women in distress.
Indian courts can hand down the death penalty for murder, while rape has a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Typically in India it takes years for ordinary Indians to get justice because of a slow-moving legal process and overburdened courts. About 63,342 cases were pending in the Supreme Court as of July 31, of which 67 percent have been in process for more than a year, government data show.
To contact the reporters on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi at [email protected]; Pratap Patnaik in New Delhi at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Hari Govind at [email protected]
Enlarge image
[h=3]Delhi Bus Rape Accused Face Murder Charge as India Seeks Justice[/h]
Indian protestors shout anti-government slogans during a protest against rape in New Delhi. Raveendran/AFP/Getty Images