New Delhi, December 16 – Tuesday will mark two years of the horrific December 16 incident in which a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was brutally gangraped and tortured by six men in a moving bus in New Delhi, triggering a massive outrage in the national capital.
The accused dumped the woman and her male companion on the road — bloodied and without clothes after nearly an hour-long ordeal. Her death a fortnight later at a Singapore hospital caused by injuries suffered during the assault shook the nation’s conscience, forcing Parliament to revise its law on sexual violence.
The revised legislation, often called the Nirbhaya law after the name an outraged nation gave to the deceased, enabled a Delhi court to call it a rare crime and award death to the four accused – Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta, Mukesh Singh, and Vinay Sharma – in September 2013, which was upheld by Delhi High Court in March this year. The Supreme Court, however, stayed their execution in July.
The sixth, and according to many, the main accused, Ram Singh, committed suicide in Tihar Jail on March 11, 2013 even as the trial in the case was still on. Tihar insiders say the four other convicts never speak to others and have to be constantly watched to prevent other inmates from attacking them.
“They have no option but to stay aloof as they are hated by other inmates, some of whom have tried to attack them. Their safety is our prime concern and hence we have put all four under surveillance,” a Tihar Jail official said last week. The only time they talk is when their families come to visit, they said.
Sharma and Gupta have been kept in Jail Number 7 of the sprawling prison. Officials say Sharma, 21, misbehaves with jail authorities and staff at times. “He has been punished twice for breaking jail rules. This was in February-March 2013. Since then, however, he has not gone against the rules, but does misbehave with jail authorities sometimes,” a source said.
Ram Singh’s brother Mukesh, 27, and Akshay Thakur, 29, live in Jail Number 5. Officials said the two keep a low profile. “They usually keep to themselves. Other than that their behaviour is fine,” an official said.
Last month, Mukesh and Pawan Gupta moved the Delhi High Court seeking directions to the Central Bureau of Investigation to provide copies of the DNA reports that were relied upon while convicting them. The hearing on their petitions is likely to be held on February 18 next year.
Since one of the six accused was a juvenile, he was tried by the Juvenile Justice Board and is currently serving a three-year term in a special reform home in New Delhi. Three years is the maximum punishment a minor gets for committing a heinous crime.
Authorities at the reform home at North Delhi’s Majnu Ka Tila say the minor, now 19, has “changed” and now shows interest in “cooking and painting”. The teenager, who is to be released in December 2015, has also not shown any violent trait in the past two years, they say.
“A month after the minor shifted to the reform home, he was rude. But since then, there has been a change in him. He has not shown any violent trait since,” a welfare officer at the Delhi government-run reformatory home told IANS on condition of anonymity.
“The reason behind his changed behaviour could be the repeated counselling he is getting. In the beginning, he never talked or discussed his feelings with anyone. But, after three-four months, when he was shifted from a separate room to a common room, he started talking to other inmates,” the officer said.
On the second anniversary of the crime, the victim’s parents said nothing has changed since the gangrape. They have now pinned their hopes on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to initiate a mission for women’s safety on the lines of his Clean India campaign.
“Like our wounds, that are stubborn and refuse to heal, it seems people in this country do not want to change themselves as more and more rape cases are coming to light every day,” the father of the victim said.
The 55-year-old, who works as a porter at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, said all new rules and laws still remain on paper, and not a single step has worked towards changing the mindset of people who sexually assault women.
“Most of the people have adopted clean habits from the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan started by Narendra Modi. He should take a similar step for the safety of women so that no one tries to sexually assault a women,” he said.
The parents have reasons to worry. In 2012, Delhi witnessed 581 rapes. In 2013, that went up to 1414. By November 15 this year, the national capital had already registered 1,686 rape cases.
-INDIA TODAY
