Burundi student's father wants capital punishment for accused

The father of 23-year-old African student Yannick Nihangaza, victim of a brutal attack that left him comatose, expressed his unhappiness over the Jalandar court order sentencing the seven accused in the case to 10 years rigorous imprisonment.
Nestor Ntibateganya, father of the Burundi student who was studying at a private university here, said capital punishment should have been awarded to all the seven accused.
"I have little knowledge of Indian constitution but if this type of incident occurred in my country the court could have awarded capital punishment to the accused," he said.
He said he had no official information about the sentence and came to know about it from the media.

On April 22 last year, Yannick was going to a party in Jalandhar when he was attacked by seven persons, after which he was admitted to a private hospital in Patiala where he is still lying in coma.
After the incident, Ambassador of Burundi Rubuka Aloys had met a senior External Affairs Ministry official seeking legal help in the case.
The police had registered case against nine persons and two of them -- Jaskaran Singh and Ranjot Singh -- are still on the run.
Yannick's father, however, expressed satisfaction over the arrangements made by the hospital for looking after his son.