West Bengal Women's Commission chairperson Sunanda Mukherjee today welcomed the Supreme Court verdict upholding the death sentence for four men in the December 16 gangrape case and said it will send out a message to those committing crimes against women.
Terming the apex court verdict as "exemplary", she told PTI, "Though I cannot say that I support capital punishment, being the chairperson of the commission, still I will say the apex court has taken the right decision. People must think twice before committing such a crime."
Asked whether the verdict would bring a positive change in the society, Mukherjee said, "We have to keep on spreading the message."
Asserting that she was against the convicted juvenile walking free after serving a three-year term in a reformation home, the women's panel chairperson said, "He was not a juvenile in mind and has committed the heinous crime."
"The verdict has come after over four years and after trials in two courts. I wish this could have come a bit earlier," she said.
The Supreme Court today upheld the death penalty to four convicts in the sensational December 16, 2012 gangrape and murder of the 23-year-old paramedic student, saying the "brutal, barbaric and diabolic nature" of the crime could create "tsunami of shock" to destroy a civilised society.
The West Bengal Human Rights Commission's former chief, justice Ashok Ganguly (retd), however, said he is against death sentence considering that all the four accused were young and they could have been reformed.
"I do not accept death sentence. Every crime is cruel. But, that does not mean that the punishment will be also as severe.
"These persons are young and how can we say that they have gone beyond any scope of reform and they are a menace to society? How they are awarded death sentence, I do not understand," Ganguly, a formed Supreme Court judge, said.
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