Rape victim's family call for blood
2012-12-31 14:56
New Delhi - The family of an Indian gang-rape victim said
on Monday they would not rest until her killers are hanged as police finalised
their investigation before charges are laid against suspects this week.
As the ruling Congress party reportedly pushed for
tougher punishments for sex crimes, including chemical castration, authorities
in New Delhi launched a hotline to improve safety for women in a city dubbed
"India's rape capital".
Around 400 university students gathered in central Delhi
on Monday, vowing to continue their "movement" until better safety
measures are put in place and the guilty punished.
The dead woman, whom friends say was planning to marry in
February, died of her injuries on Saturday in a Singapore hospital, nearly two
weeks after being savagely attacked by men on a bus in New Delhi. She was
cremated on Sunday.
"The fight has just begun. We want all the accused
hanged and we will fight for that, till the end," her brother told The
Indian Express in an interview published on Monday.
Delhi police said their probe was almost complete,
pending the arrival of an autopsy report from doctors in Singapore and the conclusions
of forensic experts, with charges to be unveiled on Thursday.
"It is up to the court to decide when the trial
would begin," said police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat.
Six men will face murder charges after allegedly luring
the 23-year-old medical student onto a bus on 16 December, and then taking it
in turns to rape her and assault her with an iron bar before throwing her out
of the moving vehicle.
The man whom she was hoping to marry, a 28-year-old
software engineer, was also left with serious injuries after he too was
attacked and dumped on the roadside.
Relatives told The Indian Express he had taken part in an
identification parade of suspects at New Delhi's high-security Tihar jail.
While the country returned to work after a weekend marked
by candlelit vigils and street protests, few people were in the mood to
celebrate New Year. Many bars as well as the armed forces cancelled or toned
down festivities.
A grieving family
Seeking to assuage anger at police and local officials
for failing to prevent widespread violence against women, the Delhi government
announced compensation of 1.5m rupees for the family of the murdered woman and
promised one of her relatives a job.
The young woman's father spoke of the impact of the
tragedy on the family.
"My wife had hardly eaten in the last two
weeks," he told the newspaper.
"She was exhausted... I think she was not ready to
face the shock of our daughter's death, despite doctors always telling us that
she was serious. She cried intermittently all of Saturday, but it got worse on
the flight back home."
The father, who was at his daughter's bedside when she
was pronounced dead in Singapore, said he too was struggling to accept the
news.
"It is too painful. I have not gone inside her room.
She was born in this house. Her books, clothes, they are all here," he
said.
The attack has led to widespread calls for rapists to be
executed in a country where the crime is so commonplace that it rarely gets a
mention in the papers.
India does have the death penalty for "the rarest of
rare" crimes although executions are only occasionally carried out.
Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving gunman of the
2008 Mumbai attacks, was hanged last month but it was the first execution for
eight years.
Rattled by the angry protests, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh has ordered a retired judge, JS Verma, to lead a review of laws on sex
crimes.
According to reports on Monday, Singh's own Congress
party may propose in its submissions to Verma's inquiry that rapists serve up
to 30 years behind bars and be chemically castrated
"Certain proposals have been made but we cannot
officially comment at this stage because the draft is not ready as yet,"
said a party spokesperson.
