December 16 gangrape : All 5 accused found guilty, political leaders for death sentence

NEW DELHI: A fast track court in Delhi has found all five men accused in the December 16 gangrape guilty. The court will pronounce the quantum of sentence for Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma on Wednesday. The fifth, Ram Singh, was found hanging in his cell a few months ago, during the trial.

“I convict all the accused. They have been found guilty of gangrape, unnatural offences and destruction of evidence”, Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna said.

The court will hear arguments of the prosecution and defence lawyers on the quantum of sentence on Wednesday. The four are likely to get either a death sentence or life imprisonment. The prosecution is likely to ask for death sentence for all accused. Political leaders are also pitching for death sentence. Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said, “capital punishment was sure for all of them.” Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj also asked for death penalty to “set an example”.





The victim’s family, present in court when the verdict was read, said justice would not be done if all five accused were not hanged for their brutal act. The sixth accused in the case, found a juvenile, was sentenced to three years’ confinement in a reform home last month. “The important aspect of this trial is the manner in which both rods and hands were used for damaging the alimentary canal and pulling it out from the body (of the girl). This act of complete destruction of the most vital parts of the body can never be termed as intending to cause bodily injuries and rather it will be act done with intention of causing death. The accused had conspired to gangrape her and the crime had been committed in a premeditated manner. The facts of the case make all accused liable for the cold blooded murder of the defenceless prosecutrix and thus the offence under Section 302 (murder), under Section 376(2) (g) (gangrape) read with Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC stands proved and the accused persons are thus convicted,” the judge said in his 237-page verdict on Tuesday.

Relying on DNA samples, finger print reports and the odontology report of the bite marks on the body of the victim, the court concluded that the convicts were the ones who had gang-raped the 23-year-old victim. The court rejected the plea of Mukesh that he was only driving the bus and had not participated in the gangrape. “In a case of gangrape and murder the liability of all the accused is equal. If the accused person had participated in the incident then the question as to who committed the rape or could not complete the act of rape becomes irrelevant for conviction of gangrape.”