Delhi gangrape case: Sheila Dikshit says 'justice has been delivered'

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Friday expressed satisfaction over a fast track court's verdict to award death penalty to all of the four convicts in connection with the December 16, 2012 gangrape and murder case.

"I am happy that the justice has been delivered. I welcome the court's decision," she told media in New Delhi.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Congress leader Rita Bahuguna Joshi said the verdict is appropriate for the criminal act, which the accused committed.

"We expected this punishment from the honourable court. It will now be a landmark judgment. The common people of this country were looking forward for this punishment for the culprits," she told media in Lucknow.

Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna, while delivering his verdict earlier in the day, said the gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus last year had shaken the nation's conscience and one could not turn a blind eye to a crime of such a heinous nature.

He termed the crime as falling in the rarest of rare category, while awarding all of the four accused the death sentence.

The judge, who had on Wednesday fixed September 13 as the date for pronouncing the quantum of sentence, said such a case can't be ignored at a time when crimes against women are on the rise.

The judge also said society has no tolerance for such crimes.

A fast-track court, which had earlier on Tuesday convicted the four by relying on the victim's dying declaration and forensic evidence, described the crime as 'premeditated' and 'brutal' act.

While pronouncing the order, the judge said the accused were found guilty of gang rape, unnatural offences, destruction of evidence and 'for committing the murder of the helpless victim'.

Of the total six accused, the prime conspirator - Ram Singh - had killed himself in Tihar Jail in March this year, while a minor accused was recently sentenced to serve three years in a special home by the Juvenile Justice Board.

The fast-track held the four remaining accused - Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan and Mukesh - guilty of being involved in the gang-rape and murder of the 23-year-old woman.

The victim's parents had earlier said that the accused should be given the death penalty.

"They should be only given the death sentence so that it sends out a strong message to the people and nobody dares to commit such a barbaric crime in the future," said the victim's father.

"If they do not get death sentence, my daughter would not get justice, and in the days to come, this crime will take dangerous form," he added.

The charges in the instant case were framed on February 2 during which the court also invoked Section 366 of the Indian penal Code (IPC) against them for abducting the girl with intention of committing "illicit intercourse".

It had in its order described the juvenile as an associate of the adult accused, who committed gang rape in furtherance of the conspiracy and "common intention".

The four have been tried for offences under section 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 376 (2)(g) (gangrape), 377 (unnatural offences), 395 (dacoity), 396 (murder in dacoity), 201 (destruction of evidence), 120-B (conspiracy), 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder), 365 ( kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person), 394 (voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery), and 412 (dishonestly receiving property stolen in the commission of a dacoity) of the IPC.

The 23-year-old paramedical student was raped, beaten and tortured by the six men on a moving bus on the outskirts of outer Delhi. The victim died of internal injuries in a Singapore hospital two weeks later.