Their lawyers are still fighting to have the death penalty lifted. Still on death row, three of the convicted rapists filed for clemency with the Supreme Court in 2017. He was released in 2015 and is reportedly living under a new identity. He was sentenced to three years in jail, the maximum sentence for juveniles. The unnamed minor was convicted of murder and rape. They were sentenced to execution by hanging. The four other adult defendants were convicted of rape, kidnapping, murder, and destruction of evidence.
What happened to the suspects?Īlthough the driver died in jail in March 2013 (Singh was found hanging in Tihar Jail, where some believe he committed suicide, while others think he was murdered by inmates), the other perpetrators lived to face their crimes. The Nirbhaya Jyoti Trust was launched by her family in her honor, providing shelter and resources for victims of sexual violence. Jyoti’s bite marks were found on the suspects bodies, as she’d fought back against the men. Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, and an unnamed 17-year-old were apprehended, and the police found Jyoti’s blood-stained clothes and the iron rod.
The five remaining suspects were all found quickly. Jyoti was only able to give statements through hand gestures and multiple-choice questions. Police located the others using sketches based on Awindra’s descriptions and texts sent from the victims’ stolen phones. He was found and arrested in the same bus where the assault took place. Less than 24 hours after the attack, the Delhi police used CCTV footage from the highway to locate bus driver Ram Singh. Her mother Asha Devi made her name public because she was “not ashamed” and wanted to destigmatize victims of sexual assault and their families. She was referred to as Nirbhaya, meaning fearless.
Initially, Jyoti’s name was kept private due to sex-assault-victim privacy laws in India. The next day, it was announced that Jyoti had passed away. On December 28, Jyoti’s health continued to worsen and the doctors informed the press that she was suffering from severe brain damage, pneumonia, and infection. On December 26, during a cabinet meeting, it was decided that Jyoti should be transferred from her hospital in New Delhi to Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore for further treatment.ĭuring the six-hour flight, Jyoti reportedly suffered a cardiac arrest and never regained consciousness. She underwent five surgeries and was declared stable after the fifth but was still considered in critical condition.įollowing public outrage, the government and Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, were intent on making sure Jyoti received the best treatment possible. It’s reported that she was also sodomized with the iron rod used in her beating. Jyoti had suffered serious wounds to her abdomen, intestines, and genitals. Afterward, Jyoti and Awindra were abandoned in the middle of the road, while the rapists attempted to clean up the evidence from the bus. Jyoti was dragged to the back of the bus and beaten with the same iron rod while being sexually assaulted by those on board. The men on board shut off the lights, the bus stopped, and Awindra was brutally beaten and knocked unconscious with an iron rod.
They boarded a bus that was reportedly off-duty, although it already had five other passengers plus the driver.Īwindra says he became nervous when the bus started taking a different route. Capital punishments and fast-track courts are a long way from addressing everyday acts of violence.Īn Emmy is all well and good, but I’ll only celebrate when even things on the ground are changing.On December 16, 2012, medical student Jyoti Singh Pandey and her friend Awindra Pratap Pandey were heading home after seeing a movie. A month before that, yet another judge in Karnataka gave bail to an accused because the rape survivor slept after being “ravished”. In July this year, a judge in Bihar ordered the arrest of 22-year-old gang rape survivor for being “agitated” in the court due to prolonged questioning. The justice system also dictates how women should act when they’re raped. Some states have not set up the recommended fast-track courts because they don’t have the funds for it. But as of 2019, nearly 90 percent of the fund was lying unused. The Nirbhaya case led to a promise of fast-track courts to deliver justice, and a government-controlled fund that aids that form of justice. A 2015 BBC documentary on the Nirbhaya case was banned.
In fact, Netflix got lucky their movie was allowed to air at all. Out of the chaos that erupts every time this kind of news takes centre stage, one thing is clear: Such stories make for great headlines.