‘They wanted us to die. Now, I want them to die’
“I never imagined that one human being could treat another so badly,” said the 28-year-old about the fatal gang rape of his female companion on Dec 16.
“The rapists injured my friend in the most shocking ways while they beat me with a metal bar and dumped us near a highway.”
“They wanted us to die. Now, I want them to die and she also wanted them to die... She wanted them to be set on fire.”
The young man, who cannot be named to prevent identification of the victim, visited his friend twice at a Delhi hospital before she was airlifted to Singapore by the Indian government for further treatment.
“She was in enormous pain but wanted to talk to me and her family. She would recall the incident and get very angry... We would quickly change the subject.”
“I would ask her about the new clothes she bought with me and make plans about things we would do when she recovered. Those plans died with her.”
In an interview ahead of yesterday’s verdict, which saw four men convicted of murder and gang rape, he said how he is wracked by guilt for being unable to protect his 23-year-old friend as they made their way home from the cinema.
The pair had spent the Sunday evening watching Life of Pi and were trying to flag down an auto-rickshaw when a bus pulled up.
It was only after boarding that they realised it was no ordinary bus and that their fellow passengers were in fact a group of drunken joyriders who would rob them before conducting a sickening assault.
Nearly unconscious after being savagely beaten, he could do nothing but watch as his friend was repeatedly raped and then violated with an iron rod.
The victim’s intestinal injuries were so horrific that they led to her death in a Singapore hospital where she suffered multiple organ failure on Dec 29.
Severe injuries left him unable to attend his friend’s funeral. The accused had broken his leg, stripped him, and kicked him out of a moving bus along with the victim. But determined that her attackers would face justice, he was the first of up to 80 witnesses to reveal before the court what he had experienced and seen.
The trial may be over, but the man, who moved to Delhi in 2006 from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, is still struggling both psychologically as well as physically.
He resumed work in May and worships a Hindu god every evening. Sometimes he goes to the cinema alone but his friend’s fate is never far from his mind.
“I could talk to her about anything, tease her and even share my coffee with her. Companionship and friendship meant being with her.
“She was cool, funny, mischievous had a great presence of mind. She could make anyone smile and maybe that is the reason why every Indian was angry and sad when she died.
“Her case made everyone feel guilty... society could not protect her. For me, I lost a friend... The guilt will always remain. The only good thing would be if we ensure that such cases do not happen ever again.”
He has been critical of the police for failing to be sensitive to his mental condition and deplored the apathy of the passers-by who did little to help at the end of their nearly hour-long ordeal.
“I wake up and the first thought that comes to my mind is always about the attack. Sometimes I think about my friend, sometimes about the rapists. It sends shivers down my spine.”
An Indian court convicted the four men of the gang rape and murder of the student.
Judge Yogesh Khanna said the men, who could now face the death penalty, were guilty of murdering a “helpless victim” as he announced that arguments for sentencing of the four would be held today.
“I convict all of the accused,” he said. “They have been found guilty of gang rape, unnatural offences, destruction of evidence... and for committing the murder of the helpless victim.”
The four — Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma — had all pleaded not guilty to the charges, which included murder, gang rape and theft. The men, all of whose faces were revealed for the first time yesterday, were economic migrants living in or around a south Delhi slum.
The victim’s parents, who wept in court as the verdict was announced, have led the calls for them to be hanged, saying that they would only find closure if the four are executed.
Lawyers for three of the convicts said they would appeal the verdict while the fourth was considering his options.
“My client was simply driving the bus,” VK Anand, the lawyer for Mukesh Singh, told reporters.
“He confessed fairly that he was driving the bus but he did not know what went on inside.” We will appeal this verdict in the High Court in a month’s time.
“But we will see what happens tomorrow after arguments and the quantum of punishment.”
AP Singh, the lawyer for Akshay Thakur and Vinay Sharma, called the verdict a “political conviction” and said they would appeal.
Mukesh Singh’s mother, draped in a beige saree, fell to Anand’s feet and broke down in tears outside the courtroom. The lawyer and her husband both tried to pick her up.
Any subsequent appeal is likely to take years in India’s notoriously slow legal system. A juvenile has already been sentenced to three years in a correctional facility, while a fifth adult defendant, bus driver Ram Singh, was found dead in his prison cell in March while awaiting trial.
“We will not accept anything below the death penalty,” the victim’s father said from his home in southwestern Delhi.
“If all four are sentenced to death, I can’t imagine anything being better than that... We will get closure.”
The seven-month trial has been held in a special fast-track court in south Delhi, with more than 100 witnesses called to give evidence, including 85 for the prosecution.
The attack sparked weeks of sometimes violent street protests across India with seething public anger about sex crimes against women.
It also led to tougher laws for sex offenders, including the death penalty for rapists whose victims die or are left in a vegetative state.
But savage attacks against women are still reported daily in newspapers and the gang rape of a photographer last month near an upmarket area of Mumbai rekindled public disgust.
India has the death sentence for the “rarest of rare crimes”, but does not often carry out executions.
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