Nirbhaya gets justice atlast !
May 5, 2017. It took five years for Nirbhaya (her real Name Jyoti Singh Pandey) to get justice, the 23-year-old medical student gang-raped and tortured on a moving bus in Delhi, today when Supreme Court confirmed death by gallows for the four convicts.
Doctors in a Singapore hospital where Nirbhaya was flown for treatment said that they had never seen a raped patient with such horrible injuries as Nirbhaya succumbed to death on December 29 due to internal bleeding, sepsis and finally coma. Her horrible ordeal and death sparked India-wide protests with incident generating widespread national and international coverage and was widely condemned, both in India and abroad.
A trial court had ruled in 2013 that the convicts should be hanged and the high court confirmed the sentence. But the four – Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh had challenged it in the Supreme Court.
On December 16, 2016, Nirbhaya with her friend had boarded the bus on the way home which turned out to be a vehicle from utter hell when she was gang raped and tortured by the barbaric five men which included the bus driver, Ram Singh and the rest. They showed no mercy, not only just the rape but they also brutalized her with an iron rod as her intestines were pulled out and she was thrown out of the bus into the bushes by the side of the road. Driver Ram Singh was found hanged in Tihar gaol while another Vinay Sharma alleged to have tried to commit suicide last year. There was a sixth convict short of 18 years when he also had participated in the horrific crime and was let free after spending three years in a juvenile correction home.
Critics argue that the legal system in India remains slow to hear and prosecute rape cases, but most agree that the case has resulted in a tremendous increase in the public discussion of crimes against women and statistics show that there has been an improvement in the number of women willing to file a crime report.
Nirbhaya was posthumously awarded one of the 2013 international Women Courage Awards of the US State Department. In the aftermath of the rape case the number of female tourists to India fell by 35% compared to the period the previous year.
In December 2013 the family of the victim established the Nirbhaya Trust, an institute formed to assist women who have experienced violence to find shelter and legal assistance. Due to the fact that Indian laws do not allow the publishing of a rape victim’s name, it was named Nirbhaya which means fearless in Hindi, after the name used by the media.
India’s Daughter (2015), a documentary film directed and produced by a UK director Leslee Udwin was scheduled to be broadcast on International Women’s Day 8 March 2015, in India on NDTV as India blocked its screening but the movie was uploaded on youtube as it went viral. On 5 March, the Indian government directed YouTube to block the video in India and YouTube complied with the order.
Then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav, announced a package of financial assistance of ₹2 million (US$31,000) and a government job to Pandey’s family.
Nirbhaya Fund of 1,000 crores was announced by government of India in 2013 Union budget with aim to support initiatives by the government and NGOs working towards protecting the dignity and ensuring safety of women in India. Unfortunately it remains unspent with government failing to come up with any scheme entailing expenditure.
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