Nirbhaya case: SC stays death penalty of 2 convicts
16 March 2014 6:31 AM IST
The Supreme Court has stayed the death penalty till 31 March of two of the four rapists convicted for the gruesome gang-rape and murder of a young medical student in a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012. Mukesh and Pawan, two of the four men convicted in the case, had approached the Supreme Court after the Delhi High Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence for all four men convicted by a trial court.
The Delhi High Court while confirming the death sentence, had said the crime was ‘premeditated’ and ‘callous’ and one that ‘left an indelible scar on the social order.’ The court had rejected the appeal of the four men - Mukesh, Vinay Sharma, Pawan and Akshay Thakur - against the trial court order, saying to extend a ‘protective arm to the convicts would be both unnatural and ludicrous.’
On 16 December 2012, the 23-year-old student and a male friend were attacked by six men after they boarded a private bus while going home from the cinema. Her friend was thrown to the back of the bus after being battered with an iron rod, which was later used to brutally violate her. The couple was then thrown from the bus. The young woman died from her injuries 13 days later.
The brutality of the attack and her determination to survive so she could identify her attackers to the police, sparked large-scale angry street protests as well as soul-searching about the treatment of women in the country.
The Delhi High Court while confirming the death sentence, had said the crime was ‘premeditated’ and ‘callous’ and one that ‘left an indelible scar on the social order.’ The court had rejected the appeal of the four men - Mukesh, Vinay Sharma, Pawan and Akshay Thakur - against the trial court order, saying to extend a ‘protective arm to the convicts would be both unnatural and ludicrous.’
On 16 December 2012, the 23-year-old student and a male friend were attacked by six men after they boarded a private bus while going home from the cinema. Her friend was thrown to the back of the bus after being battered with an iron rod, which was later used to brutally violate her. The couple was then thrown from the bus. The young woman died from her injuries 13 days later.
The brutality of the attack and her determination to survive so she could identify her attackers to the police, sparked large-scale angry street protests as well as soul-searching about the treatment of women in the country.
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