The court today held all the five accused guilty of rape and cold-blooded murder of a 'defenceless' 23-year-old girl that can fetch them death.
NEW DELHI: Less than nine months after the December 16 brutal gang rape incident, a fast track Delhi court on Tuesday held all the five accused, including a man who died during the trial, guilty of rape and cold-blooded murder of a "defenceless" 23-year-old girl that can fetch them death.
The quantum of sentence to convicts — Mukesh, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Thakur — in the case that shook the nation's conscience will be argued on Wednesday before additional sessions judge Yogesh Khanna, who delivered 237-page judgement.
"The facts of the case make all accused liable for the cold-blooded murder of the defenceless prosecutrix and thus the offence under Section 302 (murder) read with Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC stands proved and the accused persons are thus convicted," the judge said.
"... all the accused in pursuance of the conspiracy committed gang rape with the prosecutrix and thus are convicted under section 376(2)(g) (gangrape) of the IPC with the aide of section 120B IPC," the court said.
Rejecting the defence argument that the girl had died due to delayed medical aid and infection caught in the hospital during treatment, judge Khanna observed that "the important aspect of this trial is the manner in which both rods and hands were used for damaging the alimentary canal and pulling it out from the body (of the girl).
"This act of complete destruction of the most vital parts of the body can never be termed as intending to cause bodily injuries and rather it will be act done with intention of causing death."
The judge said they had conspired to gang rape her and the crime had been committed in a "premeditated manner".
"The accused are also liable for gang rape committed with the prosecutrix in pursuance to their conspiracy," the court said.
The defence counsel asked, "Is it possible that an elder brother is asking to accompany his younger one to rape a girl?"
Anand said that the court should not rely on the statement of the victim's friend, also the complainant in the case, alleging he has changed his stand on several occasions.
"The boy is untrustworthy. How can his statement be relied upon?" the counsel argued, adding that Mukesh was not aware of the incident happening in the back side of the bus as he was behind the wheels and the lights inside the bus had been turned off when the crime was being committed by others.
The victim's friend, a software engineer, had got a fracture during the scuffle in the bus.
During the course of the trial, Ram Singh was found dead in Tihar Jail here on March 11 and court proceedings against him stand abated.
The trial proceedings came to an end, two days after the juvenile offender in the case was sentenced to a three-year probation term after being held guilty by the juvenile justice board of gang rape and murder of the paramedic.
After the accused concluded their submissions, special public prosecutor Dayan Krishnan rebutted the claim of the defence counsel that the victim's dying declaration, the statement of her male friend, the DNA samples and other medical evidence had been fabricated by the probe agency.
Krishnan said the police had placed sufficient material before the court to prove the guilt of each and every accused.
The prosecution had examined 85 witnesses to prove its case against the four adult accused. The accused had brought 17 defence witnesses.
Meanwhile, A P Singh, Vivek Sharma and Sadashiv Gupta, counsel for Vinay, Akshay and Pawan, have moved an application requesting the judge to see the bus in which the incident took place.
The counsel have also asked the judge to visit Ravi Das camp in south Delhi, where the accused resided. The court will decide their plea on Wednesday
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