We have been betrayed, say parents of 19-year-old rape victim after SC order

SC acquits three accused sentenced to death for gang rape and murder of 19-year-old

Anxiously waiting on the Supreme Court lawns on Monday morning, the parents of a 19-year-old girl who was brutally gang-raped and murdered in 2012 after being allegedly abducted by three men in Dwarka’s Chhawla, were fairly confident that the appeal filed by the culprits against their death penalty would be turned down.

However, when a three-judge Bench pronounced the judgment in the afternoon, it seemed like the world had come crashing down on the parents. For them, the last decade had revolved only around fighting an arduous legal battle to get justice for their daughter. The Supreme Court acquitted the three men in the case, saying lack of clinching evidence and  glaring lapses in the trial leave the court no other alternative but to let them go free

Lifelessly squatting on the lawns, a heartbroken father told The Hindu: “We thought that since the lower courts had already convicted and given them [the three men] the death sentence, today’s order will just be a formality and come in our favour but we were left in shock after the court set them free. It feels like the court doesn’t care about what happened to our daughter and the brutality with which she was killed”.

On February 9, 2012, the victim along with her three friends was returning after work from Gurugram’s Cyber Hub at 8 p.m., when she was allegedly dragged and taken away in a car by the three accused near her house in Qutub Vihar near Dwarka. Her body was found three days later in a mutilated condition by the Haryana police in a mustard field in Rewari.

The Delhi police had stated that there were multiple injuries on the girl’s body and that she had allegedly been assaulted with objects ranging from car tools to earthen pots. The three men, identified as Rahul, 27, Ravi, 23, and Vinod, 23, were arrested and a case was lodged against them under IPC sections pertaining to gangrape, murder, kidnapping and unnatural sex.

One of the accused, Ravi, had allegedly roped in the co-accused for the crime as the victim had rejected his proposal, the police had said.

In 2014, a trial court had found the three men guilty and sentenced them to death. The court, however, acquitted them of unnatural sex due to lack of evidence. In August 2014, the Delhi High Court had confirmed capital punishment. The three men had then challenged the order in the Supreme Court in 2015 and the judgment was reserved in April this year.