Delivering its first verdict in the gang-rape of a student on a moving bus in Delhi in December last year, a Juvenile Court on Saturday held the youngest accused guilty of all offences and sentenced him to three years at a reformatory home.
The parents of the 23-year-old girl, who was assaulted and raped by six men in a moving bus, expressed their displeasure with the verdict and said that they would challenge the ruling.
"This kind of justice is meaningless, unacceptable. If the accused gets only three years for rape and murder, he might as well be allowed to go free," said the victim's mother.
The fatal attack on the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern provoked national outrage and impelled an overhaul of archaic laws to punish sexual crimes against women.
Six men were arrested for assaulting the student and her male friend with an iron rod.
One of them was 17 at the time of the attack. The charges against him include murder and rape.
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The girl's family had asked for the death penalty for all six men accused of the barbaric attack and said the juvenile should be tried as an adult as a special case, given the sheer depravity of the crime.
The Supreme Court had earlier on August 22, while admitting a plea seeking fresh interpretation of the term 'juvenile' in the statute on the basis of mental and intellectual maturity of minor offenders, gave permission to the Juvenile Justice Board to deliver its verdict against one of the accused in the brutal gangrape.
The juvenile was one of the six accused arrested in the case. While the juvenile faced inquiry before the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB), the four adult accused are being tried before a fast track court.
The 23-year-old paramedical student was raped, beaten and tortured by six men on a moving bus in South Delhi area on December 16 last year.
The victim later died of internal injuries in a Singapore hospital two weeks later.