Eye for an eye
“We will all sleep peacefully today,” the 20-year-old brother of the Delhi gangrape victim said on Friday, expressing his happiness after a Delhi court sentenced the four convicts to death for the brutal attack.
“Dil ko sukoon mila hai. Halak mein saans atki thi, rahat ki saans mili hai (It is a sigh of relief. We were waiting with bated breath, now we are relieved). We got justice. Finally we are satisfied after nine months of the incident. But the fight is not yet over. We are ready to face any kind of challenge from the convicts. And I also don’t have one bit of sympathy for them as we lost our only daughter in an unthinkable manner,” the victim’s mother said while expressing satisfaction over the death penalty.
A Delhi court on Friday awarded the four convicts — Mukesh (26), Akshay Thakur (28), Pawan Gupta (19) and Vinay Sharma (20) — the death penalty for the brutal assault on the 23-year-old woman on a moving bus on December 16, 2012, a case that had triggered nationwide outrage and massive protests, forcing the government to bring stringent anti-rape laws.
The parents of the girl had been demanding the death sentence for the convicts. With tears in his eyes, the father of the girl also expressed satisfaction over the verdict. “I am so happy. They all deserved this,” he said, minutes after the fast-track court pronounced the sentence in the case.
Heaving a sigh of relief, the victim’s brother said, “I want to hang them, though I know it is not possible, but there is some relief now. We were all waiting for this day.” The only aim now, he said, is to not let the juvenile get away with the “paltry” punishment he got. “I have been reading the juvenile act of other countries as well. Our next move is to get an amendment in the Indian JJ Act so that juveniles also face heavy punishment if they commit a heinous crime,” he said.
“This gruesome crime has to be stopped... I do not know how but enough is enough. The verdict on the juvenile had slipped our belief on the judiciary a few notches but we are satisfied now... they all deserved this,” he said.
The 20-year-old will soon be flying to Bengaluru to pursue engineering. “I was waiting for the verdict. There is some relief now... I have to do something for my parents and for my sister who I believe is still with us... somewhere here...”
No family member of any of the convict was present in the courtroom. The mother of Mukesh said she could not come to the court due to security concerns but she was mentally prepared and anticipating such a sentence.
“Though I was anticipating the worst, when I heard of the death sentence, I was still shocked. I could not cry. No matter what people accused him of, he is still my son and I cannot help feeling miserable about the punishment announced by the court,” she said.
Meanwhile, the moment the judge finished reading the order, one of the defence counsels, A.P. Singh, started shouting: “This is injustice! This is not fair!”
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