Robbery case against gangrape accused to be sent for trial

An order on the start of the trial in a robbery case involving five accused in the December 16 gangrape will be passed by a Delhi court on April 10.
Metropolitan Magistrate Akash Jain today posted the matter for committing it to a sessions court as the offences under which the accused have been chargesheeted are exclusively "triable" by a sessions judge.
The six persons, including Ram Singh who committed suicide in Tihar jail and the juvenile whose trial has been separated, had allegedly beaten and robbed a carpenter before raping and assaulting a girl in the moving bus on December 16 last year.

During closed-door proceedings, Jain asked police to provide the documents, filed along with the charge sheet, to the advocates appearing for all the accused, court sources said.
The trial against the four accused in the gangrape case is being conducted on a day-to-day basis by a special fast track court which has already examined more than 60 witnesses in the matter.
The court had earlier taken cognisance of the charge sheet filed by the police on March 15 in the robbery case against the five accused.

The proceedings against Ram Singh have been abated after he allegedly committed suicide on March 11 inside Tihar jail.

The police, in its 15-page charge sheet, had given details about how 35-year-old carpenter Ram Adhar was allegedly robbed by the accused in the bus on December 16 and later thrown out.
According to police, the five accused -- bus driver Ram Singh, his brother Mukesh, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Singh, along with a juvenile, had snatched Ram Adhar's mobile phone and Rs 1,500 after luring him into the bus.
The juvenile, who was acting as a conductor in the bus, has been named in the robbery case but a separate charge sheet has been filed against him before the Juvenile Justice Board.

The police has filed the charge sheet against the accused for offences under sections 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine a person), 342 (wrongfully confining any person), 394 (person voluntarily causing hurt in committing or attempting to commit robbery), 395 (dacoity), 412 (dishonestly receiving stolen property knowing that it was obtained by dacoity) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC.
The 23-year-old paramedical student was brutally assaulted and gangraped by the six accused in a moving bus. She succumbed at a Singapore hospital on December 29.