The family of the 26-year-old Hyderabad veterinarian, who was raped and burnt to death last week, should get justice as soon and possible, the mother of the Delhi 2012 gang-rape victim has said.
The charred body of the Hyderabad vet was found last Thursday under a culvert just off National Highway 44 in Chatanpally bridge near Shadnagar town in the Ranga Reddy district.
The victim was allegedly sexually assaulted and murdered by four men, who accosted her near the Shamshabad toll plaza on Wednesday evening, where she had parked her scooterette. Police said the men had offered to help her fix the punctured tyres of her vehicle.
The crime has reminded many of the 2012 gang-rape case in Delhi which had sparked countrywide outrage. The Hyderabad vet’s case has also provoked outrage on social media with #HangRapists trending on Twitter in India.
“This case is a reflection of society’s thought and law and order condition. I fear that like us, even that family will have to struggle for years to get justice,” the mother of the Delhi woman, who would have turned 30 in May this year, also said.
“However, we will fight for that case as well and I hope that they get justice sooner,” she said.
Her 23-year-old daughter was returning home after watching a film with her friend on December 16, 2012, when she was raped by six men on a moving bus and thrown off the vehicle. The woman died of her injuries in a Singapore hospital on December 29.
The mother of the physiotherapy intern also said she is happy that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has recommended the rejection of the mercy petition of one of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case.
“I welcome this move on the part of the Delhi government. I hope this procedure moves fast and the petition is rejected by the president so that they are hanged soon,” she said.
The state government has ‘strongly’ recommended that the petition of Vinay Sharma should be ‘rejected’ after he sought mercy from President Ram Nath Kovind to spare him from the gallows.
Delhi’s home minister Satyendar Jain, who is also in charge of prisons, made the recommendation on Friday and sent the files to Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal.
Baijal will mention his recommendations before sending the file to President Kovind to decide on the plea.
Sharma, who is lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail, had filed his mercy petition last month.
Prison authorities had written to him and three other convicts—Pawan Gupta, Akshay Thakur, and Mukesh Singh—on October 27 that they had exhausted their legal options.
They said that the department would start the process for their hanging if the four did not file a mercy plea.
Of the four convicts, Sharma is the only one to file the mercy plea.
He had attempted suicide by trying to hang himself from an iron grille in his prison cell in August 2016. He was spotted by jail officers and stopped. He had also taken a dose of anti-depressants before attempting to hang himself.
Mukesh, another convict, had refused to file a petition.
One of the accused Ram Singh had hanged himself in the jail and a juvenile was convicted of rape and murder and given the maximum sentence of three years’ imprisonment in a reform facility.
The fourth death row convict, Akshay Kumar Singh had not filed a review plea in the Supreme Court.
