India outrages by men’s release from death row

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08th Nov, 2022. 08:04 pm
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India’s top court reverses decision to sentence three men to death for gang raping and killing a teenager.
The verdict has angered the victim’s family and sparked fury on social media.
It also raises serious questions about the police investigation and the trial court’s handling of the case.

It was referred to as a “rarest of rare” event ten years ago when a 19-year-old Delhi lady was discovered gang-raped and killed in the fields of the neighboring state of Haryana.

Indians were horrified by news reports that described the abuse the youngster — referred to in court filings as Anamika since her real name was confidential under Indian law — had experienced.

In 2014, a trial court sentenced three men who had been detained for the crime to death, and a few months later, the Delhi High Court upheld the verdicts.

But on Monday, in a stunning reversal, the Indian Supreme Court set the men free, saying there was no “cogent, clinching and clear evidence” that they had committed the crime.

The three-judge bench raised serious questions about the police investigation, criticized the sessions court for “glaring lapses” in the trial and said the judge had acted like a “passive umpire”.

In a nation where tens of thousands of rapes are reported each year, the judgement has infuriated the victim’s parents, astounded campaigners and attorneys, and sparked fury on social media.

“This is what justice looks like in India 2022,” one Twitter user wrote, sharing a photo of the woman’s dejected father.

Some linked the top court’s judgement to a recent ruling by the Gujarat state government ordering the release of prisoners who were serving life sentences for the gang rape and murder of Bilkis Bano’s family members in Gujarat state during religious riots in 2002. Bano was a pregnant Muslim woman.

Anamika’s father told me that his “hopes of getting justice were dashed in minutes”.

“We had waited for 10 years for justice. We had faith in the judiciary, we believed that the Supreme Court will confirm the death penalty and my daughter’s killers would be finally hanged,” he said.

The 19-year-old resided in Chhawla, a rural neighborhood in southwest Delhi with a lower middle class. She began working in a call center in the capital’s suburb of Gurgaon in January 2012, becoming the only provider for her family.

“She had just received her first salary and was thrilled,” says anti-rape activist Yogita Bhayana, who has been supporting the family in their fight for justice for the past eight years.

Anamika was being picked up by men in a red car on the evening of February 9, 2012, while she and three friends were travelling back from work.

Her half burned, horrifically mangled body was discovered four days later, and the horrific crime made headlines in India.

The prosecution claimed during the trial that they had a strong case against the defendants.

They claimed to have discovered one of the three men’s wallets at the scene of the crime, that the suspects had confessed to the crime, directed the police to the victim’s body, and helped recover the victim’s clothing.

They went on to say that DNA evidence gathered from blood stains, semen, and hair found in the impounded automobile showed that both the accused and the victim had been inside.

The trial court convicted the men and gave them the death penalty two years later. While confirming their death sentence, the high court described the accused as “predators”.

However, the 40-page Supreme Court ruling issued on Monday by Justice Bela Trivedi cast doubt on the prosecution’s evidence and suggested that it might have been tampered with.

India outrages by men’s release from death row

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