The Delhi gang-rape case ignited massive protests in December last year and forced the introduction of tougher laws to punish sexual offences
The much-awaited closure in a case that triggered nationwide protests and soul-searching about the treatment of women in India may happen today with a Delhi fast-track court set to announce the quantum of punishment for the gang-rape and murder of a young student last December.
Judge Yogesh Khanna will decide whether the crime of the four convicts, pronounced guilty on Tuesday under 13 charges including rape and murder, falls in the 'rarest of the rare' category, warranting death sentence.
(Delhi gang-rape verdict: 4 convicted for rape & murder in case that shook India)Bus cleaner Akshay Thakur, gym instructor Vinay Sharma, fruit-seller Pawan Gupta and unemployed Mukesh Singh lured the woman and her male friend onto the off-duty school bus on the night of December 16, 2012, as the couple returned home after watching a movie at a mall.
They beat the man and, after gang-raping the young student for 45 minutes in the moving bus, they threw the couple, naked and semi-conscious, on the road. She died in a Singapore hospital on December 29.
The barbarous attack tore into India, introducing street protests, new laws for sex offences, and a national debate on the safety of women.
Six men were arrested. One killed himself in his prison cell in March. Another, who was 17 at the time of the attack, was sentenced by a juvenile court last month to three years in a reform home.
(Juvenile found guilty of rape and murder, gets less than three years in reform home)In his verdict delivered after a nine-month trial, Judge Khanna said the men had murdered "a helpless victim" inflicting 18 internal injuries on her, caused by an iron rod that was used to beat her male friend and then violate her.
(Delhi gang-rape: They committed the murder of a helpless victim, says judge)The girl's parents want the four hanged. "They have shown no remorse. She wanted them to be set on fire," said her mother.
(Delhi gang-rape case verdict: I want to live, she told her mother)
Defence lawyers, arguing that death penalty does not guarantee a crime-free society, have pleaded for mercy.
"I was appalled by their arguments. Would they say the same had this happened to their own daughter?" the girl's father had asked.