Nirbhaya verdict: BJP bats for capital punishment

New Delhi : As India’s highest court is about to pronounce its judgment on the horrific December 16 gang-rape case today, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has backed the Supreme Court’s previous decision of awarding capital punishment to the accused.
“It was very tragic incident, which has blotted the civilization of India. In my opinion there is no doubt what so ever, that all of them were guilty and I think nothing other than capital punishment should be given by the Supreme Court,” BJP leader Subramanian Swamy told ANI.

Another BJP leader Nalin Kohli said that that the Supreme Court will pronounce a judgment after a due deliberation.

“Irrespective of the judgment being in one way or the other, one needs to accept that it is the final judgment because it come from the Supreme Court and whatever it does, it is after the due deliberation,” Kohli told ANI.

The Supreme Court will today deliver the much-awaited verdict in the December 16 Nirbhaya gang rape at around 2 p.m.

The matter is being heard by the apex court bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra and consisting of Justices R. Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan.

The convicts – Akshay, Pawan, Vinay Sharma and Mukesh – challenged the Delhi High Court order which had sentenced them to the gallows.

Earlier, the trial court also had sentenced all the four convicts to death penalty.

It is being expected that the apex court would not grant relief to the accused as Justice Dipak Misra doesn’t hesitate to give a death sentence and is exceedingly sensitive to women’s rights and liberties.

He has upheld rape as depravity and not curable and recently, passed a woman friendly judgement saying that “no woman can be compelled to love; she always has right to say no”.

In December, 2012, six people gang raped a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in a moving bus. The woman succumbed to her injuries in a Singapore hospital on December 29, 2012.

One of the accused, Ram Singh hanged himself in prison, while another person, who was a juvenile at the time of the crime, was convicted in August last year and will serve the maximum sentence of three years in a reform home. (ANI)