Dec 16 gangrape: named after conspiracy with cops: accused

One of the accused in the December 16 gangrape case today told a court here that the male friend of the 23-year-old victim had taken the names of the alleged offenders after conspiring with Delhi Police.
The counsel for Pawan Gupta, in his final arguments before Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna, said the victim's friend, for the first time in his deposition in the court, had falsely assigned roles to each of the five adult accused.
"The prosecution has conspired to hatch an unsuccessful conspiracy to somehow bring in the ingredents of conspiracy in the deposition of PW 1 (the victim's male friend).

"For the first time, in his deposition before the court, the complainant(victim's male friend) had assigned individuals roles to the accused persons," Vivek Sharma and Sadashiv Gupta, counsel for Pawan, said in their arguments.
The counsel said the victim and her friend's statements were recorded several times just to complete the chain of the event "created" by the police.
They told the judge that the court should be cautioned of the contents of the girl's dying declaration, which is alleged to be the victim's original statement, and apply its own mind while passing any order against the accused as new facts were created at a later stage.

"If the prosecution story is believed to be correct, even then the intention of each accused is different from other. But police have tried to show the common intention of each accused.

"The prosecution tutored the complainant to improve his statement in deposition before the court," they claimed.
According to the prosecution, Ram Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan, Mukesh and the juvenile, who was tried by the Juvenile Justice Board, had allegedly gangraped the girl in a bus after luring her and her 28-year-old male friend, who was also assaulted, on board.
The victim's friend, a software engineer, had fractured his limbs in the incident. The girl succumbed to her injuries on December 29 last year while undergoing treatment at a Singapore hospital.