Five men went on trial yesterday over the fatal gang rape of a student on a bus in Delhi as the victim’s father urged the special fast-track court to deliver swift justice and sentence her attackers to hang.
With the case being held behind closed doors and subject to a gag order, it was left to one of the prosecutors to announce the start of the case to reporters packed outside the sessions court in New Delhi.
“The trial has begun,” Dayan Krishnan said. “The charge sheet has been submitted before the judge and the arguments will begin on Jan. 24.”
The trial is being held in a special “fast-track” court in the capital set up to circumvent India’s notoriously slow justice system, with the victim’s family leading widespread calls for quick closure on the horrifying case.
The start of the trial was delayed until late in the afternoon by a failed application to overturn the gag order, while a lawyer for one defendant also sought to move the trial out of New Delhi.
The father of the 23-year-old victim said her family would rest only once the culprits were convicted and hanged and he urged judge Yogesh Khanna to complete his work quickly.
“We have finished the mourning rituals for my daughter in the village, but our mourning will not end until the court passes down its verdict. My daughter’s soul will only rest in peace after the court punishes the men,” the father said. “It is the duty of the court and the judges to ensure that the final order to punish all the accused is handed down quickly and all the men are hanged. No man has the right to live after committing such a heinous crime.”
The assault last month on the medical student, who cannot be named for legal reasons, sparked mass protests across India — in particular in New Delhi, which has been dubbed the country’s “rape capital” over the incidence of such attacks.
Though gang rapes and sexual harassment are commonplace in India, the case has touched a nerve, leading to an outpouring of criticism of the treatment of women in Indian society.
Sonia Gandhi, president of India’s ruling Congress party, on Sunday condemned the “shameful” social attitudes that she said led to crimes like gang rape.
The New Delhi case had “shaken the entire country,” she added.
The five men face murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping and other charges, with prosecutors expected to demand the death penalty. A sixth suspect, who claims he is 17, will be tried by a separate juvenile court.
Defense lawyers say they will enter not-guilty pleas and accuse police of torturing the adult defendants — aged between 19 and 35 — to confess.
The woman, a promising student whose father worked extra shifts as an airport baggage handler to educate her, suffered massive intestinal injuries during the assault on the bus in which she was raped and violated with an iron bar.
She died 13 days later after the government airlifted her to a Singapore hospital in a last-ditch bid to save her life.
In a move that could lead to a significant delay to proceedings, the Supreme Court yesterday agreed to consider a request to transfer the trial to a venue outside New Delhi.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was