NEW DELHI: Prosecutors sought the death sentence Wednesday for four men convicted over the “diabolical” gang rape and murder of a student on a New Delhi bus as the judge set sentencing for later this week.
Judge Yogesh Khanna heard three hours of arguments from prosecution and defense lawyers in his court in Delhi before announcing he would reserve his judgment until Friday afternoon.
He faces widespread calls from the public, the victim’s family and politicians to hand down the death sentence.
which can be given for “the rarest of rare” crimes but is seldom carried out in practice.
“The court should give the maximum sentence otherwise the message will go to society that deviance of this nature will be tolerated,” special public prosecutor Dayan Krishnan told the packed court.
“The test is, was the collective conscience shocked? There can be no better example than this case,” he said, calling the crime “diabolical” in which “no element of sympathy” had been shown to the victim.
“The sentence which is appropriate is nothing short of death,” he added.
The 23-year-old victim, a physiotherapy student who cannot be named for legal reasons, died of internal injuries on December 29 after being lured onto the private bus following a cinema trip with a male companion.
After beating up the friend, the gang brutally assaulted her behind tinted windows for 45 minutes before flinging the bloodied, naked and barely conscious couple onto a road leading to the international airport.
The four convicts — Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh — were led into court by armed police and stood and occasionally sat at the back of the court wearing T-shirts and displaying little emotion.
The mother of the victim could be seen seated next to her husband a few meters in front of the men as she listened intently to proceedings while dressed in a green saree.
“We raised our daughter with great love and care,” she told reporters at the end of the hearing.
“We beg the court that justice should be given to our daughter. It was not merely a mistake, they planned and killed her mercilessly.”
Delhi gang rape verdict tomorrow
