Delhi Nirbhaya gangrape 4 convicts to be hanged
New Delhi – The Supreme Court on Friday confirmed the death sentence of four convicts in the 2012 gangrape case of Nirbhaya.
A trial court had ruled in 2013 that they should be hanged and the high court confirmed the sentence. But the four – Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh – challenged it in the Supreme Court.
In 2012, the nation was shaken up by the news of a dastardly gangrape of a 23-year-old in a moving bus in the national capital. Late on a Sunday night on December 16, 2012, the victim along with her male companion were returning from a screening of the film Life of Pi in Saket. Both of them were waiting to hail an auto rickshaw for a ride back home at around 9.30 pm. Around this time, an off-duty charter bus driven by people not driving for commercial reasons passed them and offered to give them a ride to Dwarka from Munirka. Soon, the victim’s companion noticed the route taken by the driver was different than normal and the doors of the bus had been tightly shut.
When he objected to it, the bus occupants raised fingers at the boy and the girl saying why were they out at night so late. At this point, a scuffle ensued between the victim and her companion and the other occupants of the bus, which ultimately resulted in a bloody fight and the gang rape. The two victims were thrown out of the bus in half clothed and bloodied state. A passerby found them at 11 pm and rushed them to Safdurjang hospital where they were given immediate treatment. The victim remained in a critical condition until her death on December 29, in Singapore where she had been taken for further treatment. Her companion survived after being treated for a few broken ribs.
The victim was born and brought up in Delhi while her parents are from a village in the Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh. She was a physiotherapy intern. Her father had sold ancestral land in order to help her continue her education. Her male companion, Awindra Pratap Pandey, was a software engineer from Gorakhpur.
