Five men have been arraigned in court to be charged for kidnapping, gang-raping and eventually murdering a 23 year old female on a bus in Delhi last month. She was a medicine student who passed away died due to the fatal injuries she got during the attack on 16th December. This attack has led to public outrage with many people condemning it as inhuman.
The five suspects are facing a death penalty if convicted. One of the suspects, the sixth one set to undergo a bone marrow test in a bid to establish if he is below eighteen years as claimed.
The accused suspects will not appear in the Delhi Saket District court to plead to the charges despite the fact that it is mandatory for them to appear in person. This is mainly due to security reasons.
This trial is meant to start over the weekend with up to 1000 pages of the testimony which includes the bit given by the victim before she passed away. There are also 30 witnesses who are expected to testify.
Groups of Women held daily demonstrations on Wednesday by holding protest marches through streets of Delhi and Rajghat through the Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial in a bid protest against rape as well as the attitude towards women. Sheila Dikshit who is the Chief Minister of Delhi was also present and called for stringent laws on rape with the family of the victim accenting to the idea of naming the law in her memory which was an idea brought forth by Shashi Tharoor who is the minister of Junior Education.
The victim had just come from a film accompanied by a guy friend and they decided to use the bus. They were beaten by metal bars by the attackers who then proceeded to rape the woman for one hour before throwing them both out to the street while the bus was on the move.
There are reports that the bus driver made an attempt run over her but she was lucky enough to be saved by a friend.
Source: bbc.co.uk
