New Delhi: More than a thousand students braved the biting cold to demand justice for the Delhi gang-rape victim who was cremated Sunday morning.
Protesters, unwilling to let their guards down, started gathering at Jantar Mantar from early morning yesterday after skipping New Year celebrations demanding justice for the 23-year-old who was gang-raped in a moving bus on December 16. Her death at a Singapore hospital on Saturday has only made the protesters determined to use the opportunity to make India safe for women.
Slogans such as “we want justice” filled the air as protesters lit candles on the middle of the road even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s wife Gursharan Kaur joined a prayer meeting organised in honour of the physiotherapy student.
Protesters, mainly students and youths, say they won’t rest until the case goes to the fast-track court and the laws are amended to award stiffer punishment to rapist such as the death sentence or chemical castration.
Delhi Police, which arrested all six accused, are expected to file the charges sheet in the case in the trial court tomorrow.
It is understood that the charge sheet includes an unknown shocking incident that followed the gape-rape.
Sources in the police say that the accused tried to run over the victim after throwing her and her male friend, with whom she was scheduled to marry in February, from the moving bus. She was, however, saved as her friend who was also beaten up badly managed to pull her away.
Despite protests the national capital continues to be an unsafe place to live for women.
In a separate case, as the metropolis was gearing up to celebrate the New Year, a 20-year-old girl was stabbed to death by a jilted lover.
Neha, who worked in a Noida-based call centre, was travelling in car with her colleague Gaurav when Devender intercepted the car in East Delhi’s Dallupurar about 5pm, pulled her out and stabbed her several times. Gaurav also sustained injuries and ran to call the police while the victim bled to death on the roadside.
“Devender was arrested. He was in love with Neha. However, she ignored him and went into a relationship with Gaurav. This enraged him and he allegedly decided to seek revenge,” said a police official.
Meanwhile, a bone test is being conducted to confirm the age of a juvenile suspect in custody for the fatal assault and gang-rape of the young woman, while prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the other five men arrested with him, police said Tuesday.
The six will be formally charged in court on Thursday on accusations that they kidnapped, gang-raped and murdered the 23-year-old woman on a moving bus in the capital New Delhi on December 16, police spokesman Rajan Bhagat told reporters.
Media reports say some 30 witnesses have been gathered, and the charges have been detailed in a document running into more than 1,000 pages.
Murder is punishable by death and rape by life imprisonment. But juveniles - those below 18 years of age - cannot be prosecuted for murder.
Another police officer said a bone test is being conducted to determine if the youngest suspect in the case is indeed a juvenile. If the test determines he is 18 years or older he will be treated as a legal adult, said the officer.
