Three Men Convicted Of Rape And Murder Appeal Sentence
A man convicted of the rape and murder of a woman on a bus in Delhi, India in 2012, is appealing his death sentence and the grounds that, according to him, the victim was at fault.
“A decent girl won’t roam around at nine o’clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy,” Mukeshi Singh said in an interview from prison. The case involved the rape and fatal assault of a 23-year-old , on December 16 2012 in Munrika, a neighborhood in South Delhi. The woman was beaten and gang raped in a private bus in which she was traveling with a male friend after attending a screening of “Life of Pi.” There were six others in the bus, including the driver. The men beat the friend and each raped the woman in turn, before assaulting her viciously with an iron instrument.
The woman died from her injuries 13 days later while undergoing emergency treatment in Singapore.The incident generated widespread national and international coverage and was widely condemned, both in India and abroad. Subsequently, public protests against the state and central governments for failing to provide adequate security for women took place in New Delhi, where thousands of protesters clashed with security forces. Similar protests took place in major cities throughout the country.
Leslee Udwin, a documentary filmmaker, spoke to one of the rapists on death row while spending two years making a film about the case.
Mukesh Singh was the driver of the bus. While prosecutors allege that the men took turns to drive the bus, and all took part in the rape, Singh says he stayed at the wheel the entire time, but defends the the rape itself, arguing that it was justified.
Along with three of the other attackers, Singh is now appealing against his death sentence. Over the course of nearly 16 hours of interviews, Singh showed no sign go remorse and kept expressing confusion that such a fuss was being made about the incident.
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“Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes.” said Singh. “About 20 percent of girls are good.”
People “had a right to teach them a lesson,” according to Singh, and he said the woman should have put up with it.
“When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back,” Sing explained. “She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they’d have dropped her off after ‘doing her,’ and only hit the boy.
Udwin also interviewed ML Sharma, one of the attorneys representing the men convicted to the rape.
“In our society, we never allow our girls to come out from the house after 6:30- or 7:30 or 8:30 in the evening with any unknown person,” Sharma said. “You are talking about a man and a woman as friends. Sorry that doesn’t have any place in our society, we have the best culture. In our culture, there is no place for a woman.”
All of the accused were arrested and charged with sexual assault and murder. On March 13, 2014, Delhi High Court upheld the guilty verdict and the death sentences.
While critics of the legal system argue that they are far too slow to hear and prosecute rape cases, there seems to be agreement that the case has resulted in a tremendous increase in the public discussion of crimes against women and statistics show that there has been an improvement in the number of women willing to file a crime report.
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