Delhi Gang Rape Accused Gets Three Years

NEW DELHIâ€" A Juvenile Justice Board on Saturday convicted the youngest of the six defendants in the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in New Delhi in December.

The juvenile board in New Delhi, led by the principal magistrate Geetanjali Goel, sentenced him to three years in a detention facility for juveniles.

The accused who cannot be named as he was 17 when he committed the crime had 16 charges against him. He turned 18 in June. The Delhi gang rape case triggered a debate in India over lowering the age of adult criminal responsibility to 16. The law currently defines an individual below the age of 18 as a juvenile.

“He has not been found guilty of all 16 charges,” said Rajesh Tiwari, the lawyer for the defendant outside the courtroom on Saturday afternoon.

Mr. Tiwari was ordered by the court not to give details of the counts that the juvenile has been convicted of, as the trial of the four other accused in the case is ongoing in a fast-track court in Delhi. A sixth accused, the driver of the bus on which the assault occurred, was found hanging in his cell at Tihar Jail in Delhi in March.

“This verdict is subject to review,” said Mr. Tiwari. The time already served by the accused in a juvenile detention facility will be counted toward his three-year sentence.

Three years is the maximum punishment a juvenile offender can be awarded in the Indian legal system. “He received the maximum sentence,” said Rajiv Mohan, the public prosecutor. “Nothing more can be done in the case.”

The family of the victim, who is referred to as Nirbhaya (“fearless”) by the Indian press to conceal her identity as required by Indian law, was visibly disappointed with the pronouncement.

“Three years is not enough. We have been wronged,” said Asha Devi, the mother of the victim, who burst into tears as she walked out of the courtroom after the judgment.

“We will appeal to the high court and even the Supreme Court if needed,” Ms. Devi said.

Badrinath Singh, the father of the victim, who had toiled for years as a porter to educate his daughter, fought his tears outside the courtroom. “Giving him a three year sentence or releasing him today mean the same thing for me,” Mr. Singh said.

“We were hopeful that the board would give a sentence that would give us some peace,” he added.

After the judgment a small group of men and women inside the court complex shouted slogans demanding death by hanging for the juvenile. They wore black bands on their foreheads, that read: “16 December Revolution.”

Pihu Karmakar, 20, a recent graduate from Delhi University was one of the protestors. “In a rape case everyone is guilty,” she said. “There is no difference between a juvenile or adult in such a case.”

“Will the girl come back,” said Ms. Karmakar, who was outraged by the ruling. “She was a medical student, she would have helped save so many lives.”

Another man who lent his voice to the protest was clad in a saffron robe and sported a long white beard with vermillion on his forehead. “The punishment should me more. It should be a deterrent for future generations,” said Swami Ramavtar Baba, 48, a farmer who had traveled from the neighboring Ghaziabad district of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

“The law should change. There should be no sympathy for such criminals,” he said.

In anticipation of the first verdict in the Delhi gang rape case, a large crowd of local and international journalists had assembled outside the courtroom.

The judgment had been deferred four times since July. The Supreme Court of India, which is hearing a petition for a review of the juvenile law, gave a nod to the board last week to give the verdict irrespective of the petition.

The youngest defendant had moved from a village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh to Delhi at the age of 11 and worked as a helper on the private bus, which Nirbhaya and her male friend had boarded on Dec. 16.

The woman was stripped and raped on the moving bus, attacked repeatedly with iron rods and then thrown onto a highway, along with her friend, who survived. She was treated at hospitals in India and Singapore but died from her injuries on Dec. 29.

Responding to the public outrage, the government toughened laws on sexual violence against women that criminalize stalking, voyeurism, acid attacks and allow for the death penalty in cases where a victim is left in a vegetative state after an attack.