An Indian court on Tuesday found four men guilty of the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in New Delhi last year — a crime that shocked the South Asian nation.
The sentencing hearing for the four men — Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh — will take place Wednesday, the Delhi court said.
The outcry over the vicious attack convulsed India, prompting angry protests over women’s treatment in Indian society and the introduction of tougher punishments for sexual abuse.
The victim’s parents had tears in their eyes as the judge read out the verdict, in which he said the men had been convicted for “committing murder of a helpless person.”
The father of the rape victim, whose name has been withheld under Indian law, has called for the four defendants to face the death penalty.
“We have faith in the judiciary. The accused should be hanged,” he told CNN sister network IBN in an interview that aired Monday.
The men had pleaded not guilty to the charges of murder, rape and kidnapping. But they were convicted on all counts
Two others accused
The fate of two others accused in the case had already been decided.
One man, Ram Singh, was found dead in his jail cell in March. Authorities said he had hanged himself, but his family claimed he had been murdered.
On Saturday, a juvenile court convicted a teenage boy for his part in the gang rape, sentencing him to three years in a special juvenile correctional facility.
His trial was in juvenile court because he was 17 at the time of the crime, and the sentence is the maximum allowed under the court’s rules.
The victim’s mother said she was unhappy with the verdict and wants the teenager to be hanged.
A brutal attack
The brutality of the attack, as described by police and prosecutors, helped stir up the strong emotions surrounding the case in India.
On the evening of December 16, the victim, a physiotherapy student, had gone to see the movie “The Life of Pi” with a male friend at a New Delhi mall.
During their journey home to the outskirts of town, they boarded a white charted bus at a major intersection in upmarket South Delhi.
The driver and at least five other men on the bus were drunk and looking for a “joyride,” police said.
The men dragged the woman to the back of the bus and beat up her male friend.
Police say the men took turns at raping the woman, using an iron rod to violate her as the bus drove around the city for almost an hour.
Her injuries were so severe that some internal organs had to be removed. She died two weeks later at a hospital in Singapore.
A rape every 22 minutes
As in many countries, rape is a grimly frequent occurrence in India.
According to Indian government statistics, a woman is raped every 22 minutes on average.
But the New Delhi attack seized the country’s attention.
Advocates criticized the world’s largest democracy for failing to protect half of its population. Protesters demanded better treatment of women and decried the apathy of police and the judicial system.
The government passed tougher anti-rape laws, introducing the death penalty for repeat offenders, and imprisonment for acid attacks, human trafficking and stalking.
But some Indians say that while the laws over crimes against women have changed, mindsets and enforcement haven’t.
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