Verdict on Juvenile Accused in Delhi Gang Rape Deferred

Sajjad Hussain/Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images Demonstrators protesting the Dec. 16 gang rape of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi on Dec. 19, 2012.

NEW DELHI - Seven months after six men, including a teenager, allegedly carried out an assault and rape that led to the death of a 23-year-old paramedical student on Dec. 16, the Juvenile Justice Board in Delhi has deferred its verdict against the youngest of the accused till July 25. A magistrate at the Juvenile Justice Board was expected to declare the judgement today, but has delayed the verdict against the accused who was 17 at the time of the crime.

The accused juvenile  had moved from a village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh to Delhi at the age of 11 and worked at the lowest rungs of the city’s unorganized work force. He was working as a helper on the private bus, which Nirbhaya, the name given to the victim by the Indian press to hide her identity as per Indian law, and her male friend had boarded after watching the movie Life of Pi at a South Delhi theater.

The 17-year-old and five other men, including the bus driver, had been drinking in the private-operated bus and were lingering by a bus stop in the Munirka area of South Delhi when they gave  Nirbhaya and her friend a ride. As the bus left the crowded residential area of Munirka and went onto the ring road that circles the city of Delhi,  the men allegedly violently assaulted Nirbhaya and her friend.

After the perpetrators allegedly raped her and injured her with lethal objects such as iron rods, they left the injured Nirbhaya and her friend  on a road leading to the Delhi International Airport.

Accounts of the brutal assault and rape triggered immense outrage across India, bringing thousands of protesters onto the streets of Delhi.  After being treated in Delhi hospitals, Nirbhaya was flown out to Singapore for treatment, where she died in a hospital on Dec. 29.

Delhi’s Juvenile Justice Board began an inquiry against the accused juvenile  in March and completed it last week. The board has heard the arguments of the prosecution and the defense. Geetanjali Goel, the principal magistrate of the Juvenile Justice Board, is expected to pronounce the verdict Thursday afternoon.

“A juvenile court can give maximum punishment up to three years in an observation home. The idea is not to punish but to reform the child,” said Vrinda Grover, an advocate in India’s Supreme Court.

This case has initiated a debate in India over whether to lower the age of crime from 18 years to 16 years.

“This is a global phenomenon that children at the age of 16 years are committing the heinous crime,” Ms. Grover said. “We need to see the whole context like their family background, education, social environment in which they are growing.”

In the aftermath of the gang rape, the police claimed that the juvenile was the most violent of the perpetrators in the assault. His lawyer has rejected those claims and the accused himself has claimed that he is innocent.

On different occasions on Indian news channels, the rape victim’s parents demanded death sentences for  all the accused including the juvenile. Gaurav Singh, the victim’s younger brother, while waiting for the judgment in the court along with his mother and father, said on the phone, “When he committed the crime he was seventeen and half years old. It will be an injustice to my sister if he is given a lesser sentence for being a juvenile. It will send a wrong signal.”

Ram Singh, the driver of bus in which the assault occurred, and the main suspect accused in the crime, committed suicide in March while imprisoned in Tihar Jail in Delhi. Four other accused men are facing trial before a fast-track court.