A girl stands dressed as Lady Justice, as others shout slogans seeking death sentence for the juvenile convict who was earlier given a three-year term in a reform home, after a judge pronounced death sentence for four others convicted
The US has welcomed the verdict of an Indian court awarding death sentence to the four convicts in the case gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on December 16 last year which had sparked an outrage across the country and abroad.
"We are heartened to see that the Indian justice system has spoken and the perpetrators of these heinous attacks have been convicted and sentenced in a court of law," State Department spokesperson Marie Harf, told reporters. (
Death penalty for crime that "shocked collective conscience")
"Like so many people in India and around the world, we were saddened by this horrific act of violence, yet moved by civil society's response at the same time," she said.
Secretary of State John Kerry had spoken over the issue this spring, and cited the woman's bravery and her fight for justice, she added.
"In India, as in all countries around the world, gender-based violence continues to be a challenge that we are focussed on countering, on working with people to counter all across the world," Harf said.
The death sentence awarded yesterday by a Delhi court, in the sensational gangrape-cum-murder case, said the "beastly" and "hair-raising" manner in which the crime was committed against the 23-year-old girl, fell in the rarest of rare category.