The family members of the paramedic student who was gang raped and murderously assaulted in 2012 expressed displeasure and disappointment over the Delhi High Court’s refusal to give any direction on granting a stay on the juvenile convict’s release.
“Jurm jeet gaya, hum haar gaye (Crime has won and we have lost),” was the immediate reaction of the kin of the December 16 gangrape victim. The juvenile is now a major and due to be set free on Sunday.
“Despite all our efforts for three years, our government and our courts have released a criminal. The assurance we were given that we would get justice, that has not been delivered. We are very disappointed.
“We haven’t seen him, not met him, but despite all our efforts, the criminal will walk free,” Asha Devi, mother of the victim, said, adding their three-year-old battle for justice has gone in vain.
However, the order of the high court comes with riders. The convict will be under the physical control of a management committee for the next two years. His movements will be monitored by the committee and after two years it will take a call on if he is be fit to be released in society without any observation.
While there have been massive protests and even the parents of the Delhi braveheart Jyoti Singh demanded that the juvenile, who is 21 years old now, should get a stricter punishment and not be let off, the High Court refused to go with Bharatiya Janata Party leader and senior lawyer Subramanian Swamy’s petition not to release him. The court observed that it was not going to pass any order on a juvenile convict.
While delivering the verdict, the High Court also asked the Juvenile Justice Board to talk to the minor convict’s family. Even though the other four convicts have been given death sentence because they were adult when the crime was committed, the minor was sent to three years in a remand home after his conviction in the Juvenile Justice Act.
In his petition, Swamy claimed that the mental condition of the juvenile should be monitored. “He has not reformed, he has become worse, a jihadi. The law says when time has come to let a juvenile out, his mental state had to be examined by a committee. If they find his mental state is not stable, he should be kept for 2 more years,” Swamy had said.
