Dec 16 gangrape: Court likely to pronounce verdict tomorrow

A fast track court is likely to pronounce tomorrow its verdict in the December 16 gangrape case, in which four adult accused were tried for brutal rape and murder of a 23-year-old girl in a moving bus here.
The verdict in the incident, which had evoked nationwide outrage and consequent amendments to the anti-rape laws, follows a trial which was concluded in 130 hearings and was extensively covered by the media.
The decision comes almost ten days after the juvenile accomplice was sentenced to three-year term at a detention centre after being held guilty by the Juvenile Justice Board of gangrape and murder of the paramedic and robbing a carpenter before the incident of gangrape in the same bus.

The trial in the robbery case against the four is progressing in another court.
While the victim's male friend, did not attend to repeated phone calls, his counsel D K Mishra said, "He wants to move ahead in life."
The victim's parents, who were not satisfied with the sentence given to the juvenile, say "nothing less than death to the four adult accused can do justice to their deceased daughter."

The paramedic's brother, however, accepts that law provides not more than three years' punishment to a juvenile but adds that the four co-accused should get death as all the evidence against them were put extensively before the court.

Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna had on September 3 reserved his order for tomorrow after the prosecution and the accused concluded their arguments.
During the trial, accused Mukesh admitted his presence in the bus, three accused -- Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta -- denied the charges levelled against them while prime accused and bus driver Ram Singh was found dead in his cell in Tihar jail on March 11, merely over a month since the beginning of the proceedings.
Special Public Prosecutor Dayan Krishnan had, however, junked accused claims and pressed the prosecution version that the accused were on the road on December 16 night in pursuance of a plan and targeted the victims, including the girl, in their "quest for sexual satisfaction and loot", committing a crime which was "grotesque to say the least".