One of the six charged in the fatal gang-rape of a 23-old-student in a bus in New Delhi asked the Supreme Court on Saturday to shift the trial from the capital, saying a fair hearing was impossible.
Feelings are still running high in India over the brutal attack in the middle of last month that ignited violent street protests over the lack of safety for women and sparked impassioned calls for harsher laws to tackle rape.
“The sentiment has gone into the root of each home in Delhi by which even the judicial officers and state are not spared,” the petition filed by lawyer M.L. Sharma on behalf of defendant Mukesh Singh said.
“In these circumstances, he cannot get justice in Delhi at all,” the petition said.
However, lawyers said that the application was not expected to disrupt the opening, set for today, of the high-profile trial where prosecutors plan to push for the death penalty over the killing of the physiotherapy student.
Five men — aged between 19 and 35 — face murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping and other charges in the trial. The case against a sixth suspect, who claims he is 17, will be heard by a juvenile court if it is confirmed he is a minor.
Last week, an Indian magistrate ordered the trial to be held in a special fast-track court to avoid delays that plague India’s clogged justice system.
One of the defense team said, on condition of anonymity, that they planned to make a representation to the Supreme Court today in connection with the petition to have the trial shifted. However, he said it would likely take at least a week for the Supreme Court to consider Singh’s plea if it agreed to hear it.
Defense lawyers say they will enter not-guilty pleas and accuse police of torturing the defendants to get them to make false confessions.
However, prosecutors say they have DNA evidence linking the defendants to the attack in which the student and her 28-year-old male companion were assaulted on a bus as they were returning home from a movie.
The prosecutors also have the victim’s hospital-bed declaration before her death and testimony from her companion who is recovering from a fracture and other injuries suffered while trying to fend off the attackers.
The woman suffered massive intestinal injuries during the assault on Dec. 16 in which she was attacked with an iron bar. She died 13 days later after the government airlifted her to a Singapore hospital.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS