Nirbhaya case-Four Indian men executed for 2012 Delhi bus rape and murder
20 March 2020
The rape case that galvanised India
Four Indian men convicted of the gang rape and murder of a student in Delhi in 2012 have been hanged.
Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh were sentenced to death by a trial court in 2013.
The four were hanged in the capital's high-security Tihar prison in the first executions in India since 2015.
The victim died from her injuries days after being raped by six men on a moving bus. The incident caused outrage and led to new anti-rape laws in India.
The 23-year-old physiotherapy student was dubbed Nirbhaya - the fearless one - by the press as she could not be named under Indian law.
Six people were arrested for the attack. One of them, Ram Singh, was found dead in jail in March 2013, having apparently taken his own life.
Another, who was 17 at the time of the attack, was released in 2015 after serving three years in a reform facility - the maximum term possible for a juvenile in India.
In the last few months, all four convicts filed petitions in the Supreme Court in a bid to reduce their sentences to life imprisonment.
But the top court rejected their petitions, leaving the men with no other legal recourse. A last-minute appeal to have the death penalties commuted was also rejected hours before the executions.
Minutes after the convicts were hanged on Friday morning, the victim's mother said, "I hugged my daughter's photograph and told her we finally got justice."
Sentenced rapists (from left to right): Vinay, Pawan, Mukesh, Akshay
The four men had pleaded not guilty
Her father said that his "faith in the judiciary had been restored".
Security was tight outside the prison with a large number of police and paramilitary personnel deployed to maintain law and order.
A group of people carrying placards had gathered outside the prison gates and began celebrating after the executions were announced.
Some chanted "death to rapists" and waved posters thanking the judiciary.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted on Friday morning saying "justice has prevailed". He added that the country had to "build a nation where the focus is on women's empowerment".
Despite the fact that this case made rape and sexual violence against women a focus, there has been no sign that crimes against women are abating.
Recently-released figures from the National Crime Records Bureau show police registered 33,977 cases of rape in 2018 - that's an average of 93 cases a day.
What happened to Nirbhaya?
The student boarded an off-duty bus at around 20:30 local time on 16 December 2012 with a male friend. They were returning home after watching a film at an upscale mall.
The six men, who were already on board, attacked the couple, taking turns to rape the woman, before brutally assaulting her with an iron rod. Her friend was beaten.
Police investigating the bus at Thyagraj stadium, in which a Paramedical student was reportedly raped in a moving bus, on December 18, 2012 in New Delhi, India.
Police checking the bus in which the student was raped
They were then thrown out onto the roadside to die. Some passers-by found them naked and bloodied and called the police.
Two weeks later - after widespread protests that demanded India to reckon with its treatment of women - the victim died in a hospital in Singapore, where she was taken for further treatment after her condition deteriorated in a Delhi hospital.
Has India become safer for women?
Geeta Pandey, BBC News, Delhi
A short answer to that question would be: No.
And that's because despite the increased scrutiny of crimes against women since December 2012, similar violent incidents have continued to make headlines in India.
And statistics tell only a part of the story - campaigners say thousands of rapes and cases of sexual assault are not even reported to the police.
I personally know women who have never reported being assaulted because they are ashamed, or because of the stigma associated with sexual crimes, or because they are afraid that they will not be believed.
Some say strict punishment, swiftly delivered, will instil a fear of the law in the public mind and deter rape, but experts say the only permanent solution to the problem is to dismantle the hold of patriarchal thinking, the mindset that regards women as being a man's property.
Until that happens, how do women and girls in India ensure their safety?
Read the full piece here
How did India react to the crime?
"Wake up India, she's dead," screamed one newspaper headline, announcing her death.
The horrific crime triggered a firestorm of protests in India, in ways that had not really been seen before.
The capital came to a standstill as protesters occupied the main streets. Authorities even temporarily closed some Metro stations in a bid to stop people from gathering.
Thousands of furious protesters - mostly young women and men - still turned up at India Gate in the centre of the city, prompting police to use water cannons to disperse the crowds.
A protester chants slogans as she braces herself against the spray fired from police water canons during a protest against the Indian government's reaction to recent rape incidents in India, in front of India Gate on December 23, 2012 in New Delhi, India
There were widespread protests in India
Protests continued in Delhi and several other cities for a fortnight, the number of days it took the victim to succumb to her injuries.
The Delhi government tried to halt rising public anger by announcing a series of measures intended to make the city safer for women: more police night patrols, checks on bus drivers and their assistants, and the banning of buses with dark windows or curtains.
The attack became an inflection point, galvanising a national debate on the treatment of women.
Public outrage over the crime mounted again in 2015 when the BBC broadcast a documentary called India's Daughter which included an interview with one of the convicts who blamed the victim for what happened to her.
In India, the documentary caused a big enough stir that resulted in the film being banned. Television news channels that were supposed to broadcast the film ran a blank screen instead.
What were the new anti-rape laws that followed the incident?
Reacting to the massive protests, India announced new anti-rape laws in March 2013.
They prescribed harsher punishments for rapists and addressed new crimes, including stalking, acid throwing as well as spying on a woman when naked or circulating her pictures without her consent.
They also expanded the definition of rape to state that the absence of physical struggle didn't equal consent.
Also, under the new laws, a repeat offender of rape or rape that causes coma could be given the death penalty.
인디아 델리, 뉴델리로 모여드는 하층민들의 경제적 문화적 빈곤이 만들어낸, 강간 범죄.
Mob drags out rape accused from Dimapur jail, thrashes him to death
At least 10 vehicles were also set ablaze by the unruly mob forcing the authorities to clamp curfew in Dimapur district.
Suspected rapist lynched outside Indian prison
This article is more than 8 years old
Mob storm jail in Dimapur, drag man outside and beat him to death for alleged sexual assault on a woman
Associated Press in Delhi
Fri 6 Mar 2015 13.51 GMT
Several thousand people stormed a prison in north-eastern India, where they dragged away a man accused of rape and then lynched him, police have said.
The mob overpowered security at Dimapur central prison in Nagaland on Thursday and seized the suspect, whom they also accused of being an illegal migrant from Bangladesh. They pelted him with stones and beat him to death, said PC Sunep Aier.
Police said a curfew was imposed in the city after the killing and no other incidents of violence had been reported.
The man had been arrested on suspicion of raping a local woman on 24 February.
India has seen an outpouring of anger against sexual violence. But Thursday’s killing was also likely linked to tensions over an influx of migrants from Bangladesh. Dimapur, the largest city in Nagaland, is 1,000 miles east of Delhi.
Several local groups accuse migrants of taking away their land and jobs and have been protesting in recent weeks.
The Indian government remained defiant on Thursday over its ban on a BBC documentary about the 2012 fatal gang-rape of a student in Delhi.
There has been a groundswell of acclaim for India’s Daughter from prominent Indians who watched it online.
But the home minister, Rajnath Singh, has been resolute on the ban, which is supported by nearly all of India’s political establishment.
Indian Mob Breaks Into Prison, Lynches Alleged Rapist
Security personnel clear the crowd after the mob killed accused rapist Syed Farid Khan, Dimapur, India, March 5, 2015. (Caisii Mao—Demotix/Corbis)
Security personnel clear the crowd after the mob killed accused rapist Syed Farid Khan, Dimapur, India, March 5, 2015. Caisii Mao—Demotix/Corbis
BY RISHI IYENGAR
MARCH 6, 2015 4:21 AM EST
An incensed mob in India publicly executed an alleged rapist on Friday, after breaking into his jail cell and parading him naked through the streets.
The lynch mob of more than 1,000 people broke the prison fences and overpowered guards to drag out Syed Farid Khan, the Indian Express reported.
Khan, 35, was being held in a prison in Dimapur, in the northeastern state of Nagaland, after being arrested for allegedly raping a student from a local women’s college. The crowd stripped him naked and dragged him to the town’s clock tower, kicking and pelting him with stones on the way, and hung him there once they arrived.
The mob also clashed with authorities and reportedly set shops ablaze, prompting the police to open fire and wound several people.
Tensions are currently high in India, particularly regarding allegations sexual assault, following the government’s decision to ban a British documentary based on a fatal gang rape in New Delhi in 2012 that garnered worldwide attention. The film features interviews with one of the convicted rapists as well as two defense lawyers belittling the crime and making sexist remarks.
Meera Kushna 미라 쿠쉬나 ( 카라울리 공무원)
Oftentimes the real problems in Karauli district is that men are drawn to alcohol.
The men do meinal labor during the days. There aren't any big business here, so they do bits and pieces.
And They drink what they earn in the evening. Women have to face all of this.
Them men have fights with their families, they even beat the kids and the women.
They drink away all their money.
Dipanker Gupta 디판커 굽타 (사회학자)
뉴델리와 같은 대도시로 몰려든 농촌의 저소득층이, 빈곤으로 인해, 범죄와 폭력으로 빠지게 된다고 지적.
Indian Mob Lynches Alleged Rapist in Prison
The crowd of thousands broke into the facility where he was being held.
time.com
