New Delhi Protestors

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Such savages do not deserve to live...

Delhi gang rape suspects 'did not mean to murder'
21 Jan 2013 - All five defendants are expected to return to court later this week when the court will officially frame charges

The men accused of the gang-rape of a 23-year-old Indian student, who died from horrific internal injuries inflicted by an iron rod, did not intend to kill her and are not guilty of murder, one of their lawyers claimed as their trial began. Had they intended to kill the victim, they would have strangled her or attacked another of her vital organs, advocate AP Singh, who is acting for two of the five defendants, said outside the court on Monday. Both of his clients deny any part in the assault, gang-rape and murder of the woman who said she was attacked by six men in December after she and a friend boarded a bus on their way home from the cinema. In a statement taken as she was being treated in hospital, she said she had been raped by all of the accused and subjected to an attack with an iron bar which destroyed her bowels and intestines. She died 13 days later in a hospital in Singapore.

The attack provoked protests throughout India and calls for the perpetrators to be given the death penalty. Five men, each with their faces hidden by scarves and balaclavas, appeared in Delhi's Saket court today. Ram Singh, his brother Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur are all accused of kidnap, gang-rape and murder, while a sixth unnamed defendant is being treated as a juvenile and will be tried in a separate court. The judge Yogesh Khanna dismissed a defence plea for the trial to be conducted in public, upholding an earlier ruling that it should be in-camera. Outside the court, AP Singh claimed one of his clients, Mr Sharma, is in fact 17-years-old and should be tried in a juvenile court. He was not on the bus on the evening of the attack but at his home, he added.

Mr Thakur, his second client, was on the bus as its cleaner at the time of the assault, but had neither raped nor attacked the victim. He had seen a "quarrel" but had not witnessed a sexual assault. When asked how the victim had suffered the injuries and how he explained forensic evidence of semen on the bus, Mr Singh said "anything can happen in a quarrel." "The rod was not intended to kill, there was no intention to murder...[the removal of] 95 per cent of the intestines is not intention to murder," he said. "There is no evidence of rape or that she was killed because of assault." He will argue that, at worst, the defendants are guilty of 'culpable homicide' - which carries a sentence of between seven to 10 years. All five defendants are expected to return to court later this week when the court will officially frame charges drafted by the police.

Delhi gang rape suspects 'did not mean to murder' - Telegraph

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Trial of Delhi gang-rape suspects begins
Tue, Jan 22, 2013 - ‘HEINOUS’: The father of the victim said his mourning would not end until the culprits were swiftly hanged, but a request to transfer the trial outside Delhi could delay it

Five men went on trial yesterday over the fatal gang rape of a student on a bus in Delhi as the victim’s father urged the special fast-track court to deliver swift justice and sentence her attackers to hang. With the case being held behind closed doors and subject to a gag order, it was left to one of the prosecutors to announce the start of the case to reporters packed outside the sessions court in New Delhi. “The trial has begun,” Dayan Krishnan said. “The charge sheet has been submitted before the judge and the arguments will begin on Jan. 24.” The trial is being held in a special “fast-track” court in the capital set up to circumvent India’s notoriously slow justice system, with the victim’s family leading widespread calls for quick closure on the horrifying case.

The start of the trial was delayed until late in the afternoon by a failed application to overturn the gag order, while a lawyer for one defendant also sought to move the trial out of New Delhi. The father of the 23-year-old victim said her family would rest only once the culprits were convicted and hanged and he urged judge Yogesh Khanna to complete his work quickly. “We have finished the mourning rituals for my daughter in the village, but our mourning will not end until the court passes down its verdict. My daughter’s soul will only rest in peace after the court punishes the men,” the father said. “It is the duty of the court and the judges to ensure that the final order to punish all the accused is handed down quickly and all the men are hanged. No man has the right to live after committing such a heinous crime.”

The assault last month on the medical student, who cannot be named for legal reasons, sparked mass protests across India — in particular in New Delhi, which has been dubbed the country’s “rape capital” over the incidence of such attacks. Though gang rapes and sexual harassment are commonplace in India, the case has touched a nerve, leading to an outpouring of criticism of the treatment of women in Indian society. Sonia Gandhi, president of India’s ruling Congress party, on Sunday condemned the “shameful” social attitudes that she said led to crimes like gang rape. The New Delhi case had “shaken the entire country,” she added. The five men face murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping and other charges, with prosecutors expected to demand the death penalty. A sixth suspect, who claims he is 17, will be tried by a separate juvenile court.

Defense lawyers say they will enter not-guilty pleas and accuse police of torturing the adult defendants — aged between 19 and 35 — to confess. The woman, a promising student whose father worked extra shifts as an airport baggage handler to educate her, suffered massive intestinal injuries during the assault on the bus in which she was raped and violated with an iron bar. She died 13 days later after the government airlifted her to a Singapore hospital in a last-ditch bid to save her life. In a move that could lead to a significant delay to proceedings, the Supreme Court yesterday agreed to consider a request to transfer the trial to a venue outside New Delhi.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2013/01/22/2003553158

 

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Granny says, "Dat's right - fast-track `em to the hangman's noose...

Another gangrape accused tells court he is juvenile
Mon Jan 21 2013, As the Delhi gangrape case came up before the special fast track court on Monday, a second accused claimed he was under the age of 18 and asked to be treated as juvenile, his lawyer said.

Vinay Sharma, an assistant gym instructor, moved an application before the fast track court of Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna asking to be put through a bone ossification test, his lawyer A P Singh told reporters outside the court. Reporters have been barred from covering the proceedings of the court. Sharma had in earlier proceedings before the magistrate’s court refused to undergo a test identification parade and expressed “remorse at the horrible crime”. Police have recorded his age as 20.

Singh, who is representing Sharma and another accused Akshay Thakur, said Sharma’s earlier statement had been made “under pressure of police”, at a time when he had no lawyer. “The boy’s mother has said that the school certificate that records his date of birth as being in March 1994 is wrong, and they (the family) had deliberately given an older age to the school so that the boy could be enrolled a year early,” Singh said. He added, “Vinay’s actual date of birth is March 1, 1995, which makes him less than 18 years of age. We have now asked the court to conduct a bone density test to check his age.”

Singh said the court has asked the prosecution to reply to Sharma’s application on the next date of hearing. The five men accused of brutally gangraping a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus on December 16 evening — Ram Singh, his brother Mukesh, Pawan Kumar, Sharma and Thakur — were produced before the fast track court on Monday with their faces covered. The sixth accused, who has claimed to be a minor but who is thought to have been the most violent of the attackers, is facing an inquiry into his age by the Juvenile Justice Board.

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5 on Trial in India Gang-Rape Case
January 21, 2013 — The trial of five men charged with the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old woman last month began Monday in a specially convened fast track court in New Delhi.

The start of the trial was delayed for more than an hour as defense lawyers argued that it should be open to the media and public. “Kindly allow the media, because crime is against the society: society, [the] person at large has every right to know what is going on in [the] court itself," said attorney V.K. Anand, explaining why they wanted an open trial for the five suspects in the case. Judge Yogesh Khanna, who was given the charge sheet, rejected the pleas, saying only those connected with the case could remain in the courtroom. Arguments in the case will begin on Thursday.

Defense lawyers of two of the five accused men say their clients will plead not guilty, arguing that the men were beaten and tortured by police to coerce confessions following the huge public outrage over the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student. Prosecutors, however, are confident of convicting the accused, who range from 19 to 35 years of age. They will rely on DNA evidence, cellphone records and the testimony of the victim, who died after fighting for her life in the hospital for several days.

A senior prosecutor has said he will seek the death penalty for all five men. A sixth suspect claims to be a juvenile and is being tried separately. The Supreme Court is due to hear an appeal by one of the five accused men to move the trial out of New Delhi to ensure that he can get a fair trial. His petition says deep anger over the crime means he cannot get justice in a city where there have been widespread public calls for the alleged perpetrators to be hanged.

The gang rape ignited massive public protests from thousands of young men and women, who have been demanding speedy justice, more safety and better treatment for women. Public outrage prompted the government to move the case to a fast track court in a country where it is common for rape victims to wait for years before the guilty are brought to justice. India’s courts are clogged with an estimated 33 million cases. Besides the huge wait to get a verdict, the conviction rate in rape cases is also very poor. The government is establishing six fast track courts in Delhi to deal with crimes against women.

5 on Trial in India Gang-Rape Case

 

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The case has shocked India and raised a debate over the treatment of women...

Delhi rape: Court charges juvenile with rape and murder
28 February 2013 - A court in India has formally charged a 17-year-old accused in the fatal gang rape of a woman in the capital Delhi last month.

The Juvenile Justice Board has charged the boy with rape, murder and other crimes, including kidnapping. It set 6 March as the start of the trial. If convicted, he faces a maximum of three years in a reform facility.

Five other suspects have gone on trial at a specially convened fast-track court and face the death penalty. The brutal assault shocked India and raised a debate over the treatment of women in the country.

The victim, a physiotherapy student who cannot be named in India for legal reasons, and a male friend were attacked on a bus on 16 December. Police said the assailants beat both of them, and then raped the woman. She suffered massive internal injuries and died nearly two weeks later.

BBC News - Delhi rape: Court charges juvenile with rape and murder

 

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The fix is in...

Court Defers Verdict in India Gang Rape Case
July 25, 2013 > An Indian juvenile court has again delayed delivering a verdict in the case of the brutal December gang rape of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi.

Officials say the verdict, which was scheduled to be handed down Thursday, has been delayed until August 5 because of a challenge pending in the Supreme Court seeking to change the legal definition of a juvenile. The defendant was 17 at the time of the attack in December. He is being tried as a minor on murder and rape charges and is facing three years maximum in a detention center.

He is one of six suspects in the case. The trial of the adult suspects, one of whom died in jail from a suspected suicide in March, continues in a special fast-track court in New Delhi and is expected to wrap up in a few months. The four remaining adults are facing the death penalty. The defendants are accused of beating the woman and her male companion with an iron rod and using the rusty rod during the sexual assault of the woman. She died of her injuries two weeks after the attack.

The woman's rape set off nationwide protests. Protesters have called for tougher rape laws, major police reforms and a transformation in the way India treats women. The expedited proceedings in this case are in response to public outrage for the brutality of the attack. The special fast-track court was established to circumvent India's notoriously slow justice system.

Court Defers Verdict in India Gang Rape Case

 

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Rape out of control in India...

Shocking stories of rape streaming out of India
Friday 19th July, 2013 > India's reputation as a country is becoming increasingly battered by what appears to be an endless stream of shocking attacks on women and children.

The incidence of reported rape cases in India, where there is impunity for rape committed by husbands and members of security forces, is not higher than other countries, but authorities fear the number of unreported cases is distorting the national figures. On Tuesday alone this week came news of an eight-year-old boy being sodomised by a man in his house in New Delhi, a 3-year-old girl was raped by a twenty-year-old unemployed youth in Bhopal, while in Gurgaon district of Haryana a 50-year old was charged with raping his mother. Last Sunday eight men abducted 4 girls aged between 12 and 14 from a convent boarding house in the country's east and raped them in a nearby forest.

A 10-year-old girl died in Mumbai last month after being repeatedly raped by four suspects. In New Delhi on Wednesday a high official in India's agriculture department was arrested after a complaint from his five daughters alleging that he had repeatedly raped each of them. The women, who have since married, went to police after they found the man had starting raping his granddaughters. The man's wife has also been charged for refusing to report the crimes after being told of her daughters' ordeals. She told her daughters to ignore the raping as it was "a family tradition."

Despite a number of high profile attacks in recent months that have attracted international coverage, the number of reported cases continues to rise. A rape is reported every 20 minutes. Many people across India have joined in protests. One reason for the increasing number of attacks is the judiciary, and their refusal to take a tough stand. The man who sodomised the 8-year-old boy for example was sentenced to just 3 years in prison this week, and was ordered to pay Rs 10,000 Indian Rupees), the equivalent to just $161 in compensation to the victim.

In December, the gang rape and death of a twenty three-year old woman in Delhi triggered demands for criminal law reform in India. The Government set up a three-member committee headed by former Supreme Court Chief Justice JS Verma to review laws against sexual assault. However, in February, the President signed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013, which ignored many of the key recommendations of the Verma Committee.

Shocking stories of rape streaming out of India | Big News Network

 

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India gettin' to be the rape capital of the world...

YOUNG INDIAN JOURNALIST GANG RAPED IN MUMBAI
Aug 23,`13 -- A 22-year-old photojournalist was gang raped while her male colleague was tied up and beaten in an isolated, overgrown corner of India's business hub of Mumbai, police said Friday. The case was reminiscent of the December gang rape and death of a young university student in the Indian capital that shocked the country.

The latest attack took place Thursday evening in Lower Parel, a onetime textile-manufacturing neighborhood of south Mumbai that over the past decade has changed dramatically. Today, upscale malls, trendy restaurants and super-luxury condominiums sit side-by-side with abandoned textile mills and sprawling slums. Police said the Indian woman was on assignment for a magazine to take pictures of the neighborhood when five men confronted her and her colleague at about 7 p.m. After initially offering to help her get permission to shoot inside a crumbling, isolated building, the men became aggressive and accused the male colleague of being involved in a local crime.

When he denied involvement in the crime, they tied his hands with a belt and took the woman to another part of the compound and took turns raping her, Mumbai's police commissioner, Satyapal Singh, told reporters. Police on Friday arrested a suspect in the attack who named and identified the other four men, Singh said. While police have released sketches of the four men, Singh would not give their names or other details, saying authorities did not want to give them any warning that they were being sought. Singh said the men may have been local drug dealers.

Indian policemen inspect the site where a 22-year-old woman was gang raped in Mahalaxmi area in Mumbai India, Friday, Aug. 23, 2013. The young woman photojournalist was gang raped while her male colleague was tied up and beaten in India's business hub of Mumbai, police said Friday. The case was reminiscent of the December gang rape and death of a young university student in the Indian capital that shocked the country.

The woman was in stable condition in a hospital. Police declined to say who she was working for at the time of the attack. The assault comes amid heightened concerns about sexual violence in India. The gang rape and death of the student on a bus in New Delhi in December had shaken a country long inured to violence against women and sparked protests demanding better protection for women. In response, the government passed a stringent law increasing prison terms for rape and making voyeurism, stalking, acid attacks and the trafficking of women punishable under criminal law.

About 1,000 people, including members of several local journalists' associations, gathered Friday evening in south Mumbai to stage a silent protest. Some wore black armbands, while others carried placards reading "Stop rape" and "City of shame." The attack was also discussed in India's Parliament, where junior Home Minister R.P.N. Singh told lawmakers that the government had asked the state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, for a detailed report on the attack. He said the federal government had recommended that the "harshest" punishment be handed down to anyone found guilty in the case.

News from The Associated Press

 

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Guilty verdict in New Delhi rape case...

Indian Juvenile Guilty in Gang Rape Case
August 31, 2013 > An Indian juvenile court has found a teenager guilty of rape and murder in the fatal gang rape of a young woman on a moving bus in New Delhi late last year.

The defendant, who was 17 at the time of the attack, was sentenced to three years in a reform home - the maximum sentence he could have received. The three years will include the time he has already spent in custody. He is now 18.

Indian policemen escort the juvenile (C, in pink hood), accused in the December 2012 gang-rape of a student, following his guilty verdict at a court in New Delhi

The victim's family wanted the teenager to be tried as an adult and to receive the death penalty. A 23-year-old student died of internal injuries after being raped and assaulted with an iron bar allegedly by six males in December. Her male companion was also beaten before both were thrown off the bus.

Four adult defendants are being tried in a special fast-track court and face the death penalty. The other accused adult was found dead in his jail cell in March. The attack set off furious protests across India about the treatment of women in the country and led to an overhaul of sexual assault laws.

Indian Juvenile Guilty in Gang Rape Case

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India convicts youngest Delhi gang rape defendant
Aug 31,`13 -- An Indian juvenile court on Saturday handed down the first conviction in the fatal gang rape of a young woman on a moving New Delhi bus, convicting a teenager of rape and murder and sentencing him to three years in a reform home, lawyers said.

The victim's parents denounced the sentence, which was the maximum the defendant faced. The family had long insisted the teen, who was 17 at the time of the December attack and is now 18, be tried as an adult - and thus face the death penalty - insisting he was the most brutal of the woman's attackers. "He should be hanged irrespective of whether he is a juvenile or not. He should be punished for what he did to my daughter," the victim's mother, Asha Devi, told reporters after the verdict was announced. Indian law forbids the publication of the teen's name because he was sentenced in a juvenile court.

The attack, which left the 23-year-old victim with such extensive internal injuries that she died two weeks later, sparked protests across the country and led to reforms of India's antiquated sexual violence laws. The government, facing immense public pressure, had promised swift justice in the case. The convicted teen was one of six people accused of tricking the woman and her male companion into boarding an off-duty bus Dec. 16 after they had seen an afternoon showing of "Life of Pi" at an upscale shopping mall. Police say the men raped the woman and used a metal bar to inflict massive internal injuries to her. They also beat her companion. The victims were dumped naked on the roadside, and the woman later died from her injuries in a Singapore hospital.

The victim's father said the family was deeply disappointed with the sentence. "This is completely unacceptable to us," Badrinath Singh said. "We are not satisfied with this outcome. He is virtually being set free. This is very wrong." "No family should have a daughter if this is the fate that lies ahead for women. In this country, it is crime to be born a girl," he said. Indian law forbids the publication of the names of rape victims, even if they die. S.K. Singh, a lawyer for the victim's family, said they would challenge the juvenile court's verdict in a higher court. "We will also seek a review of the man's age by a medical panel, since we believe he was not a juvenile when the incident took place," he said.

In India, especially in rural areas, many people do not have their births properly registered, and school certificates are used as proof of age. Singh and the defendant's lawyer, Rajesh Tewari, both confirmed the conviction and sentence. Reporters were not allowed inside the courtroom. Scores of television crews lined up on the road outside the court building beginning early Saturday, waiting for the verdict. Four of the other defendants are being tried in a special fast-track court in New Delhi and face the death penalty. The sixth accused was found dead in his jail cell in March. The court is expected to hand down the rest of the verdicts in September.

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Juvenile gang rape sentence condemned as too lenient...

Outrage over gang rape sentence
Mon, Sep 02, 2013 - India’s opposition yesterday said it would seek tougher punishments for juveniles after the first verdict in the New Delhi gang rape case saw a teenager sentenced to three years’ detention, sparking widespread anger.

The rape and murder of a 23-year-old student by six attackers on a moving bus in December last year sparked nationwide protests and led to reforms that mandated longer sentences for adult sex offenders. Sushma Swaraj, opposition leader in the lower house of the Indian parliament, said she would introduce a bill this week to amend the law for juveniles. “This meager punishment of just three years does not do justice,” Swaraj wrote on Twitter. “The sentence must commensurate with the gravity of the offence irrespective of the age of the offender,” she added. On Saturday, a juvenile court in New Delhi sentenced the only under age suspect in the gang — who was 17 at the time of the crime — to three years in a correctional facility.

This was the maximum sentence under India’s law, which treats all under-18s as children and seeks to reform rather than punish them. “TRAVESTY: December 16 teen rapist ‘gets away’ with murder,” a headline in the tabloid Mail Today read, summing up the mood. The convicted teen will spend about 28 months in a juvenile detention center, having already spent about eight months in custody awaiting the verdict. “He can watch TV, play games while doing time,” the Hindustan Times reported, while saying that police sources had earlier described the teenager as “the most brutal” of the six attackers. The Times of India said the gang rape victim had “been denied justice” by the juvenile court.

Subramanian Swamy, a politician from the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, said the teenager “should have been executed” and he intended to file an appeal against Saturday’s court order. Swamy has already lodged a petition in the Indian Supreme Court challenging India’s juvenile law for not taking the gravity of a crime into account during sentencing. “It’s ridiculous to think you can reform a person who has committed a heinous crime, who has raped and murdered a young woman in such a brutal fashion,” he added. According to the teenager’s defense lawyer, his conduct will be observed and the sentence could be reduced for good behavior. News emerged on Saturday evening of another attack in the Noida suburb of the capital, where a woman was allegedly gang raped by five attackers, including two police constables.

The Press Trust of India said the 25-year-old victim was attacked while visiting a male friend, who was also assaulted by the gang of five. Last month, a 22-year-old photographer was gang raped in Mumbai while taking pictures at an abandoned mill in a posh part of the commercial capital. Protesters outside the juvenile court on Saturday and the victim’s family called for the teenager to be hanged. The victim, a physiotherapy student, died of internal injuries two weeks after being raped and assaulted with an iron bar on the night of Dec. 16 last year. Her male companion was beaten up before both were thrown bleeding from the bus. A separate trial of the four adult suspects in a fast-track court is hearing closing arguments and is expected to wrap up in the next few weeks, with the men facing a possible death sentence if convicted. The fifth adult, the suspected ringleader, died in jail in what has been reported as suicide.

Outrage over gang rape sentence - Taipei Times

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India fury over gang rapes sign of changing nation
Sep 2,`13 -- A series of recent high-profile gang rape cases in India has ignited a debate: Are such crimes on the rise, or is it simply that more attention is being paid to a problem long hidden within families and villages? The answer, experts say, is both.

Modernization is fueling a crisis of sexual assault in India, with increasingly independent women now working in factories and offices and stepping beyond the subservient roles to which they had traditionally been relegated. They are also more likely than their mothers and grandmothers were to report rapes, and more likely to encounter male strangers in public. "We never used to see so many cases of gang rape, and so many involving groups of young, unemployed men," said Supreme Court lawyer Kirti Singh, who specializes in women's issues.

While there are no reliable statistics on gang rapes, experts say the trend, along with the growing sense of insecurity it has brought for women, led to recent outbursts of public anger over the long-ignored epidemic of violence against women. The silence broke in December, when a New Delhi student was gang-raped on a bus in a particularly vicious attack from which she died two weeks later. A juvenile court on Saturday handed down the first conviction in the case, sending a teenager to a reform home for three years for rape and murder. The sentence, the maximum a juvenile can face, was widely denounced as too lenient, and the girl's parents vowed to appeal. The other suspects in the case are being tried as adults and could face execution if convicted.

Relatives weep during the cremation of a 5-year-old girl who died at a hospital where she was being treated for injuries after being raped, in Ghansor, Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh state, India. A series of recent high-profile gang rape cases in the country has ignited a debate: Are such crimes on the rise, or is it simply that more attention is being paid to a problem long hidden within families and villages? The answer, experts say, is both. Modernization is fueling a crisis of sexual assault in India, with increasingly independent women now working in factories and offices and stepping beyond the subservient roles to which they had traditionally been relegated.

While attacks on women occur constantly across India, often within the home, the brutality and public nature of the New Delhi case left many shocked and shamed. Thousands took to the streets in the capital to express their outrage. The government, pledging to crack down, created fast-track courts for rape cases, doubled prison terms for rape and criminalized voyeurism, stalking, acid attacks and the trafficking of women. The Tourism Ministry launched a nationwide "I Respect Women" campaign after a Swiss bicyclist was gang-raped in March in central India and an American woman was gang-raped two months later in the northern resort town of Manali.

Yet another high-profile gang rape last month, against a photojournalist on assignment in Mumbai, renewed public fury and sent the media into 24-7 coverage marked by daily front page headlines and talk shows debating how to make India safe for women. "There is very clearly a class dimension" that is compounding the sudden outrage, women's rights lawyer Flavia Agnes said. All five of the accused in the Mumbai attack had little to no education, and three had previously been arrested for theft, Mumbai police said. They lived in the slums near the abandoned textile mill where the woman was raped.

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4 Guilty of India Bus Rape...

Indian court convicts 4 in fatal gang rape case
Sep 10, 2013 ~ Men could now face death penalty

An Indian court convicted four men Tuesday in the fatal gang rape of a young woman on a moving New Delhi bus, an attack that set off waves of protests and gave voice to years of anger over the treatment of women. The men, convicted on all the counts against them, including rape and murder, now face the possibility of hanging. The sentences are expected to be handed down Wednesday. Reading out his verdict, Judge Yogesh Khanna said the men had committed "murder of a helpless person."

The parents of the rape victim, who cannot be identified under Indian law, had tears in their eyes as the verdicts were read. The mother, wearing a pink sari, sat just a few feet from the convicted men in a tiny courtroom jammed with lawyers, police and reporters. Outside the courthouse, where dozens of protesters had gathered, a chant began quickly after the verdict: "Hang Them! Hang Them! Hang Them!"

Protesters called the case a wake-up call for India. "Every girl at any age experiences this - harassment or rape. We don't feel safe," said law school graduate Rapia Pathania. "That's why we're here. We want this case to be an example for every other case that has been filed and will be filed." A.P. Singh, a lawyer for the men, said all were innocent. "These accused have been framed simply to please the public," he told reporters. "This is not a fair trial." The four men, along with another suspect who hanged himself in prison and a juvenile convicted in August, were riding through the city on an off-duty bus in December when they tricked the 23-year-old woman and a male friend into boarding.

They beat the friend into submission, held down the woman and repeatedly raped her. They also penetrated the woman repeatedly with an iron rod, causing severe internal injuries that led to her death two weeks later. Facing public protests and political pressure, the government reformed some of its antiquated laws on sexual violence, creating fast-track courts to avoid the painfully long rape trials that can easily last over a decade. The trial of the four men, which took about seven months, was astonishingly fast by Indian standards.

News from The Associated Press

 

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Granny says dey's nothin' better'n a good Sunday afternoon hangin'...

Four face death for 'cold-blooded' murder of Delhi gang rape victim
10 Sept.`13 - Four men were convicted on Tuesday of the "cold-blooded" murder of a woman who was raped and tortured on a bus in New Delhi, a crime that shook India and forced the country to confront sexual violence in a society undergoing wrenching change.

The four - a bus cleaner, gym instructor, fruit seller and an unemployed man - face hanging, the maximum penalty for murder. The trial judge will hear prosecution and defense arguments on sentencing on Wednesday, when he could deliver his ruling. The minimum sentence the men could get is life imprisonment, two defense lawyers said. "She has got justice today. We are very happy," said the father of the 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist who was attacked on December 16. "We are very confident that all of them will be hanged." Judge Yogesh Khanna said he had relied in part on the dying declaration of the victim in finding the men guilty.

As he read the verdict, the mother of the victim sat with tears in her eyes, just a few feet from the four men who stood flanked by policemen against a wall in the court. The victim, who came from a lower-middle class family and worked in a call center while she studied, cannot be named for legal reasons, but Indian media have dubbed her Nirbhaya, a Hindi word meaning fearless. She became a symbol of the daily dangers women face in a country where a rape is reported on average every 21 minutes and acid attacks and incidents of molestation are common.

The case has resonated with thousands of urban Indians who took to the streets in fury after the attack. The victim's path through education onto the first rungs of middle-class life seemed to epitomize the aspirations of millions of young women in a society where many men believe women should stay at home. Bus cleaner Akshay Kumar Singh, gym instructor Vinay Sharma, fruit-seller Pawan Gupta, and unemployed Mukesh Singh lured the woman and a male friend onto the bus as the pair returned home from watching a movie at a shopping mall.

As the bus drove through the streets of the capital, the men repeatedly raped and tortured the victim with a metal bar before dumping her and her friend, naked and semi-conscious, on the road. She died in a Singapore hospital two weeks later of internal injuries. In his 240-page judgment, Judge Khanna slammed the "inconsistent" defense. Three of the men said they were never on the bus, and another said he was driving and knew nothing of the crime, despite DNA evidence and bite marks on the women's body that placed them at the scene. Khanna said the attackers pulled the woman's intestines from her body with metal rods and their bare hands. He accused the men of cold-bloodedly killing their "helpless victim".

"NOT LIKE NORMAL"

 

[bianco]

Barbaric.
Luckily, I wasn't ever going to set foot in India anyway.
The place scares me...and I'm not so easily frightened....and I'm male.
I'm not convinced I would never be gang-raped in India.

What with the Mumbai terrorist attacks...and attacks on tourists;

Six men convicted of gang-raping Swiss tourist while she was in India | Mail Online

Six men convicted of gang-raping Swiss tourist while she was camping with her husband in India

 

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Death sentences not likely to stem sexual attacks...

Many Doubt Death Sentences Will Stem India Sexual Attacks
September 13, 2013 — There was no mistaking the whoop of joy that rose outside Saket District Court on Friday, when word got out that four men convicted in last December’s horrific gang rape and murder had been sentenced to death by hanging. People burst into applause. They hugged whoever was beside them. They pumped the air with their fists.

“We are the winners now,” said a woman holding a placard. Sweat had dried into white rivulets on her face, but she had the look of a woman who had, finally, gotten what she wanted. And it was true: A wave of protests after the December rape have set remarkable changes in motion in India, a country where for decades vicious sexual harassment has been dismissed indulgently, called “eve-teasing.”

But some of India’s most ardent women’s rights advocates hung back from Friday’s celebration, skeptical that four hangings would do anything to stem violence against women, a problem whose proportions are gradually coming into focus. “I think a lot of people were hugging each other because they thought this evil is localized, and it will be wiped out, and that is not the case,” said Karuna Nundy, a litigator who has argued before India’s Supreme Court. “The sad truth is that it is not a deterrent.”

From the moment it broke, the story of the 23-year-old woman who became known as “Nirbhaya,” or “fearless,” awoke real rage in the population. Hoping for a ride home from a movie theater, she and a male companion boarded a private bus, not realizing that the six men aboard had been cruising Delhi in search of a victim. After knocking her friend unconscious, they took her to the back of the bus and raped her, then penetrated her with a metal rod, inflicting grave internal injuries. An hour later, they dumped the pair out on the road, bleeding and naked. She died two weeks later of her injuries.

Young men and women, mobilized through social media, joined protests that spread across India, demanding tougher laws and more effective policing. “As a woman, and mother, I understand how protesters feel,” Sonia Gandhi, India’s most powerful female politician and the president of the governing Congress Party, said at the time. “Today we pledge that the victim will get justice.”

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A push to make infrastructure safer for women in India...

Infrastructure will make India safer for women: report
Mon, Sep 16, 2013 - Campaigners are calling for a new deal for India’s women in the wake of the death sentences handed down by a New Delhi judge. Four men were found to have tricked a woman and her male friend on to an out-of-service bus before gang-raping her, so brutally that she later died from her injuries.

The case brought women’s rights protesters across India on to the streets in angry demonstrations against the country’s culture of violence against women, from female feticide to rape. However, activists fear the intense focus on the trial will do nothing to improve the safety of women on city streets. A new report by three Indian academics supports those concerns and says it is India’s infrastructure that needs to change, from bus services to public toilets. Issuing his decision, Judge Yogesh Khanna said the attack “shocked the collective conscience” of India. “In these times, when crime against women is on the rise, the courts cannot turn a blind eye toward such gruesome crimes,” the judge said.

Nearly 25,000 reported cases of rape were reported last year in India. In New Delhi, with a population of 15 million, more than 1,000 cases were reported this year until the middle of last month, against 433 reported in the same period last year. The rise may be in part due to increased reporting, but India’s National Crime Records Bureau says registered rape cases in India have increased by almost 900 percent over 40 years, to 24,206 incidents in 2011. Some activists say one in 10 rapes is reported; others say it is closer to one in 100. In a 2011 poll nearly one in four Indian men admitted to having committed some act of sexual violence.

However, the report, “Invisible Women,” by academics Shilpa Phadke, Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan — due to appear in the next issue of Index on Censorship magazine later this month — reflects a real fear that at the end of the New Delhi trial the media spotlight will move away from the mistreatment of women. The report argues that India’s infrastructure needs to be transformed to give women an equal and safer place in cities. They write that the Delhi rape “was facilitated in part by the lack of adequate public transport, which meant that [the victim] was traveling in a private bus.”

The women point out that transport, lighting, toilets and other public facilities are designed with an “invariably male” user in mind. Women’s restrooms “are dark and unfriendly” and often close at 9pm, “sending the clear message that women are not expected to — and not supposed to — be out in public at night.” Women “have to learn extreme bladder control and to negotiate dark streets and unfriendly parks,” the report said. The authors claimed shopping malls were the only places in India’s cities where women felt safe. Streets need to be well-lit, public transport needs to be regulated and to run day and night, and safe toilets need to be available for all women before attacks can decrease.

The victim in the bus rape had been to the movies. “Changing attitudes may take time, but the provision of infrastructure can be a simple one-time policy decision, which reinforces the point that women belong in public space,” they said. Mumbai’s scheme for women-only train carriages was seen as a great success because it “enshrined their right to be there,” they added. The report illustrates the determination of activists to keep the momentum of the Delhi case from fading. “It is the beginning of our movement,” said Anuradha Kapoor of civil rights group Maitree, who was arrested in June at a women’s rights protest. “We won’t give up so easily.”

Infrastructure will make India safer for women: report - Taipei Times

 

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Changing the perspective of rape in India...

India’s village councils under scrutiny after rape
Mon, Jan 27, 2014 - In the hours after her six-year-old daughter was kidnapped, screaming in terror as she was dragged away from home, Rimaila Awungshi appealed for help from the most powerful authority she knew — the council of elders in her rural Indian village.

In her anguish, Awungshi told the village leaders what happened. She was a single mother to a beloved little girl named Yinring, whose name translates as “living in God’s shelter.” Her ex-boyfriend had refused to marry her or care for their child, but as the years passed and he never found a wife, his family demanded custody. “But I am poor, and I have no brothers and the village authority doesn’t care,” Awungshi said in a telephone interview from her home in remote northeast India. Across much of rural India, these powerful and deeply conservative local councils are the law of the land. They serve as judge and jury, dictating everything from custody cases to how women should dress to whether young lovers deserve to live or die. They often enforce strict social norms about marriage and gender roles.

These unelected and unregulated courts now are coming under fresh scrutiny after police say a council of elders in West Bengal ordered the gang rape of a 20-year-old woman as punishment for falling in love with the wrong man. “We are going back to the 16th century,” West Bengal politician Pradip Bhattacharya said last week as news of the gang rape began to spread in a country already reeling from a string of high-profile cases of sexual violence against women. Village councils are common in South Asian countries with vast rural communities, serving as the only practical means of delivering justice in areas where local governments are either too far away or too ineffective to mediate disputes. Often, the elders try to halt the march of the modern world, enforcing strict social norms about marriage and gender roles.

In some of the most extreme cases, the councils have sanctioned so-called “honor killings,” usually against women suspected of out-of-wedlock sex. Known as khap panchayats, the councils act with impunity because villagers risk being ostracized if they flout the rulings. The courts can be especially harsh toward women, enforcing the most conservative aspects a patriarchal system that is deeply entrenched in Indian society. The Indian Supreme Court has lashed out at the khaps, saying that they amount to vigilante justice, are “wholly illegal” and should be stamped out. On Friday, the Indian Supreme Court took up the West Bengal case, ordering an investigation on a suo moto basis — meaning that the court acted on its own, without a request from either side in the case.

In many ways, the councils show how centuries of patriarchal traditions often clash with the values of a modern world in India. The growing numbers of financially independent young women who live on their own in cities would balk at even the most innocuous dictates by a village council, such as not wearing jeans or using cellphones. According to Indian police, at least 13 men attacked the woman in West Bengal — she lost count of exactly how many — on Monday last week after the elders in Subalpur village discovered her love affair with a Muslim man from a neighboring village. The woman is a member of the Santhal tribe, and marrying a Muslim man from outside her community would be considered a violation of custom.

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Mumbai rapists convicted...

Mumbai court convicts four of gang rape
Fri, Mar 21, 2014 - ‘FORCED SEX’: Three of the four were also convicted of gang-raping a telephone operator who came forward after the photographer’s case made headline news

A Mumbai court yesterday convicted four men over the gang rape of a photographer on assignment in the Indian city last year, a case that reignited nationwide anger over women’s safety. The court found the men guilty of raping the 22-year-old in August last year at an abandoned mill compound, where she had gone to take photos with a male colleague, close to an upscale area of the financial city. Mohammed Salim Ansari, Siraj Rehmat Khan, Vijay Mohan Jadhav and Mohammed Kasim Hafeez Shaikh, also known as Kasim Bangali, aged between 18 and 27 at the time of their arrest, were in the south Mumbai court to hear the verdict. “All the four accused are found guilty of committing forced sex,” Judge Shalini Phansalkar Joshi said, adding that the four would be sentenced today when they could be handed life in prison.

The judge said they were also found guilty of other offenses, including having unnatural sex, showing pornography to the woman and forcing her to perform similar acts, stripping her and destroying evidence. The attack sparked outrage in the financial hub, Mumbai, which had long been considered safer for women than the capital, New Delhi, where the fatal gang rape of a young student in December 2012 shook the nation. Handcuffed and surrounded by police in the court, the four, wearing shirts and jeans, showed little emotion as the verdict was read out. A fifth accused is being tried separately by a juvenile court.

Three of the men, Jadhav, Ansari and Shaikh, were also found guilty during the same hearing of gang-raping an 18-year-old telephone operator one month earlier in July last year at the same mill compound. She came forward to police after the photographer’s case made headline news around the country. Police say the photographer was threatened with a broken beer bottle by her attackers, while her male colleague accompanying her was beaten and tied up with a belt while she was assaulted. The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was admitted to hospital for several days with injuries after the attack and collapsed in court as she gave evidence in October last year.

Police have described her four attackers as unemployed school drop-outs, while three of them live in slums close to the mills. “It’s going to send a strong signal to would-be offenders,” Himanshu Roy, who was joint police commissioner at the time of the attack, told the NDTV news channel, of the verdict. Roy said that there were “no words which can really commend her enough” for her efforts and cooperation in the case. The attack on the student in Delhi sparked weeks of angry street protests about India’s treatment of women and led to tougher laws for rapists and other sex offenders. Four men were sentenced to death in September last year over that attack, but the Supreme Court earlier this month stayed the execution of two of them while their appeal is heard.

Mumbai court convicts four of gang rape - Taipei Times

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Rape protesters battle Indian police for 2nd day


I am not well-informed on this topic but it sounds like some change is needed in India and there are those determined to pursue it. It sounded like they had laws against such protests but I am not certain.

Might be worse in India, but it's not as though we have a handle on things here in the US. Our's is also a very rape-tolerant culture. Only a tiny percentage of reported rapes are ever prosecuted. And public forgiveness for rapists' actions is fairly predictable. Mike Tyson for example despite a conviction for rape is now a minor celebrity.

 

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Granny don't feel sorry fer `em - she says dey's crybabies...

Rapists weep at life prison terms
Sun, Mar 23, 2014 - An Indian court handed down life sentences on Friday to three rapists who attacked a photographer and a call-center operator in an abandoned mill compound in the center of Mumbai.

Mohammed Salim Ansari, Vijay Mohan Jadhav and Mohammed Kasim Hafeez Shaikh were given the sentences a day after their conviction for the attacks in July and August last year that triggered worldwide headlines and reignited anger about women’s safety in India. “This court has to take a stern view of crimes against women, so that a proper message is sent to society,” Judge Shalini Phansalkar Joshi told a packed hearing of the sessions court in south Mumbai.

The sentences handed down on Friday only relate to the gang-rape of the phone operator and the judge said that separate tariffs would be announced tomorrow for the assault on the photojournalist. The men, sitting at the back of the courtroom and surrounded by police, looked down and wept as their sentences were read, while their relatives were heard crying.

A fourth man, Mohammed Ashwaq Sheikh, was also jailed for life in the telephone operator case, while another convicted in the photographer attack, Siraj Rehmat Khan, is expected to learn his fate tomorrow. The five men were aged from 18 to 27 when arrested and a juvenile suspect is being separately tried. The phone operator came forward after reading about the photographer’s ordeal in the same compound, which lies close to an upscale area of the city as well as slums.

Police described the photographer’s attackers as unemployed school drop-outs, while neighbors say they were a gang known for petty theft and drinking. The case sparked anger in the city, which is usually considered safer than the capital, New Delhi, where an attack on a student in December 2012 sparked weeks of angry street protests about India’s treatment of women and led to tougher laws for rapists and other sex offenders.

Rapists weep at life prison terms - Taipei Times

 

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Two police officers arrested...

VILLAGE PROTESTS RAPE, KILLINGS OF INDIAN SISTERS
May 29,`14 -- Two teenage sisters in rural India were raped and killed by attackers who hung their bodies from a mango tree, which became the scene of a silent protest by villagers angry about alleged police inaction in the case. Two of the four men arrested so far are police officers.

Villagers found the girls' bodies hanging from the tree early Wednesday, hours after they disappeared from fields near their home in Katra village in Uttar Pradesh state, police Superintendent Atul Saxena said. The girls, who were 14 and 15, had gone into the fields because there was no toilet in their home. Hundreds of angry villagers stayed next to the tree throughout Wednesday, silently protesting the police response. Indian TV footage showed the villagers sitting under the girls' bodies as they swung in the wind, and preventing authorities from taking them down until the suspects were arrested. Police arrested two police officers and two men from the village later Wednesday and were searching for three more suspects.

Autopsies confirmed the girls had been raped and strangled before being hung, Saxena said. The villagers accused the chief of the local police station of ignoring a report by the girls' father Tuesday night that the girls were missing. The station chief in Katra, 180 miles (300 kilometers) southwest of the state capital, Lucknow, has since been suspended. The family belongs to the Dalit community, also called "untouchables" and considered the lowest rung in India's age-old caste system.

Records show a rape is committed every 22 minutes in India, a nation of 1.2 billion people. Activists say that number is low because of an entrenched culture of tolerance for sexual violence, which leads many cases to go unreported. Women are often pressed by family or police to stay quiet about sexual assault, and those who do report it are often subjected to public ridicule or social stigma. India tightened its anti-rape laws last year, making gang rape punishable by the death penalty, even when the victim survives. The new laws came after the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in New Delhi that triggered nationwide protests.

Health workers, police and women's rights activists say women and girls face the risk of rape and harassment when they go out into fields or bushes due to the lack of toilets in their homes. More than a half billion Indians lack access to toilets. A recent study said around 30 percent of women from poor families faced violent sexual assaults every year because they did not have access to a safe toilet. Last month, the head of Uttar Pradesh state's governing party, the regionally prominent Samajwadi Party, told an election rally that the party was opposed to the law calling for gang rapists to be executed. "Boys will be boys," Mulayam Singh Yadav said. "They make mistakes."

News from The Associated Press

 

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Police Fired After India Gang Rape...

India gang rapes: Police sacked over hanged girls
30 May 2014 ~ Two police officers in India have been sacked for refusing to help search for two missing girls who were later found gang-raped and hanged, authorities say.

One officer was arrested while the other fled. Two of the suspected attackers have also been detained. The government has pledged to set up a fast-track court to prosecute the crime, which took place earlier this week in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Alleged police inaction sparked outrage in the teenagers' village. The father of one victim told the BBC he was ridiculed by police when he sought help in finding his missing daughter.

He said that when policemen found out he was from a lower caste, they "refused to look for my girl". The sacked officers were charged with criminal conspiracy, police said on Friday. Two of the three men accused of raping and killing the girls have been arrested. The third suspect was on the run, authorities added. Meanwhile, reports have emerged that two more gang rapes of minors occurred in the state this week.

The incident has received top coverage on India's main TV channels such as NDTV, Times Now and CNN-IBN. "Uttar Pradesh Rape shockers", reads a ticker on NDTV, which accuses the local police of being "complicit" with the attackers and quotes relatives of the two girls saying they have "no faith" they'll receive justice. "Lawless in Uttar Pradesh" reads a top headline on CNN-IBN, which has started its own campaign using the hashtag #StopThisShame. "UP: 3 Rapes in 48Hrs" is the lead on the Times Now channel, which reports the growing number of rape incidents in the state of Uttar Pradesh. "Outrage" is the word used on the front pages of several leading English-language newspapers, including The Hindu and The Indian Express.

In an editorial, The Times of India lays the blame on the government of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Singh, saying the hangings "exposes the state's slide into medieval lawlessness".

BBC News - India gang rapes: Police sacked over hanged girls

 

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Granny says dey oughta hang `em till dey's tongues hang out...

Three confess to gang-rape and murder of Indian girls
1 Jun 2014: Two more suspects still sought by police over latest act of violence against women that outraged the country

Three suspects have confessed to the gang-rape and killing of two teenage girls who were found hanging from a tree in northern India last week, police say. The search for two additional suspects continued on Sunday for a fourth day, police officer Atul Saxena said.

The gang-rape and killing of the 14- and 15-year-old cousins in Uttar Pradesh state caused outrage across the nation. The two girls, from an impoverished family with no toilets in their home, disappeared on Tuesday night after going into fields to relieve themselves.

The father of one of the two victims of gang-rape gestures towards the tree where his daughter was found hanged, in Badaun district, Uttar Pradesh.

Saxena said police were preparing identity sketches of the two missing suspects based on descriptions provided by the arrested suspects in the village of Katra, about 180 miles (300km) from Lucknow, the state capital. The three suspects detained so far in the attack are cousins in their 20s from an extended family. They face murder and rape charges, crimes punishable by the death penalty.

Authorities have also arrested two police officers and suspended another two for failing to investigate when the father of one of the teenagers reported the girls missing. Federal authorities are expected to take over investigation into the crime this week, Saxena said.

Three confess to gang-rape and murder of Indian girls | World news | theguardian.com