The father of an Indian student whose gang rape and death sparked public outrage against the government has demanded that those responsible be hanged and he called for new legislation on sex crimes to be named in honor of his daughter.
The Dec. 16 attack on the 23-year-old physiotherapy student and a male companion provoked furious protests close to the seat of government in New Delhi and has fueled a nationwide debate about the prevalence of sexual crimes in India, where a rape is reported on average every 20 minutes.
The woman died of her injuries on Saturday in a hospital in Singapore, where she had been taken for treatment.
Five men and a teenager have been arrested in connection with the attack. The five men were due to be formally charged yesterday. Murder carries the death penalty in India.
The father of the woman said he backed the chorus of calls for those responsible to be executed.
“The whole country is demanding that these monsters be hanged. I am with them,” the father told reporters in his home village of Mandwara Kalan in Uttar Pradesh.
Neither the woman nor members of her family have been identified in accordance with the law.
The woman was born in the village, but the family soon moved to the capital, New Delhi.
The father said he was demanding a change in the law to allow for the execution of juveniles. One of the six accused has been reported to be under the age of 18.
The studious, ambitious young woman was determined to improve life in her village, he said.
“She said, ‘Papa, the place of your birth is very backward, if I become a doctor I will first improve life in the village,’” he said.
Days of protests in New Delhi and other cities followed the attack. Many of the protesters have been students, infuriated by what they see as the failure of the government to protect women.
The case against the five accused is due to be processed by a new, fast-track chamber set up in response to the crime. The teenager is due to be tried in a juvenile court.
Hanging is only allowed in the “rarest of rare” cases under Indian law. It was used for the first time in eight years in November when the lone surviving gunman from a 2008 militant attack on Mumbai, Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, was executed.
Police have said the accused have admitted to torturing and raping the student “to teach her a lesson.” She fought back and bit three of them, a police source said, and the bite marks are part of the evidence against them.
After throwing her from the private bus, the driver tried to run the victim over, but she was pulled away by her companion, a senior police official said.
Police have prepared a dossier of evidence and charges against the accused believed to run to 1,000 pages, including testimony from the woman’s friend who survived the hour-long attack on the bus, and a man who said he was robbed by the same gang prior to the rape.
The woman’s father told reporters he supported a proposal to name revised legislation in his daughter’s honor.
“She is the one who has been sacrificed,” he said.
The government has set up two panels headed by retired judges to recommend measures to ensure women’s safety. One of the panels, due to make recommendations later this month, has received some 17,000 suggestions from the public, media reported.
The district court where the charges are due to be heard is expected to assign a defense lawyer for the five men after the bar association said none of its members were willing to represent them.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing