Justice: 3 Men To Be Executed for the Gang Rape and Brutal Murder of a 23-Year-Old Woman
Jyoti Singh went to the movies with a male friend in Delhi, India, on Dec. 16, 2012. She was 23 years old at the time and working toward becoming a physiotherapist.
After the movie, around 9:30 p.m., they boarded a bus that supposedly was headed to their destination.
Singh would never make it home.
Six young men were joyriding in the bus. They started taunting Singh and her friend, Awindra Pandey. When he objected, they beat him, gagged him and knocked him unconscious with an iron bar.
Over the next hour or so, the men then took turns raping Singh and using the iron bar on her. They beat on her and bit her.
When they were done, the men threw Singh and Pandey off the moving bus onto the road. The driver of the bus apparently then tried to run them over, but Pandey, half-conscious, was able to pull Singh out of the way. They were found bloody and half-naked about 11 p.m.
Singh had suffered catastrophic injuries; her intestine reportedly was hanging out. She died 13 days later.
The horrific crime sparked protests throughout India and around the world demanding justice for “Nirbhaya,” as Singh was called by the Indian media.
The perpetrators were arrested within days, and all six were convicted.
One of them was a juvenile when he committed the crime; he was released after three years in prison.
The driver of the bus, Ram Singh, hanged himself in his jail cell in 2013.
However, his brother, Mukesh, suggested Jyoti Singh was to blame for what happened to her. “A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy,” he said in a 2015 interview, adding, “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape.”
If reading those words fills you with rage, you’ll be happy to hear that Mukesh Singh soon will have a hangman’s noose around his neck. On Monday, he, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma lost their final appeal to India’s Supreme Court and — barring a very unlikely presidential pardon — will pay the ultimate price for their heinous crimes.
They will be joined by Akshay Thakur, who did not contest his death sentence.
Jyoti Singh’s mother, Asha Devi, said the ruling was “very happy news,” but she is tired of waiting for justice.
“We have had many judgments,” she told reporters. “Now the only thing I want to hear is the news that the savage beasts have been hanged.”
Let’s hope she doesn’t have to wait much longer.
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