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A JUDGE HAS sentenced four men to death for the fatal gang rape of an Indian student on a bus last December, triggering applause inside the packed courtroom.
Judge Yogesh Khanna told a court in the Indian capital that the case, which sparked widespread anger against the treatment of women in the country, fell into the “rarest of rare category”, which justified capital punishment.
“In these times when crimes against women are on the rise, court cannot turn a blind eye to this gruesome act,” he said.
As the courtroom burst into applause, the father of the 23-year-old victim told reporters that he was delighted with the sentence.
“We are very happy,” said the father, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his late daughter. “Justice has been delivered,” he told reporters inside the court, flanked by his wife and sons. His wife said that her daughter’s “wish has been fulfilled at last”.
One of the men, Vinay Sharma, broke down in tears as the sentence was announced, according to an AFP correspondent.
All four suspects were teary eyed as they entered the cramped room to hear their punishment after they were convicted on Tuesday of a string of charges including murder and gang rape.
There had been a huge clamour for the four – Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta, and Mukesh Singh – to be executed for their attack on the physiotherapy student and her male companion on December 16.
After prosecution lawyers argued on Wednesday the gang were guilty of a “diabolical” crime, the victim’s mother had implored the judge to hand down the death sentence.
Police in riot gear maintained a heavy presence outside the court today with the road leading up to the complex barricaded off.
India had an unofficial eight-year moratorium on capital punishment until last November, when the only surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks was executed. Weeks later, a Kashmiri was hanged over his role in an attack on parliament a decade ago.
During Wednesday’s hearing, defence lawyers argued Judge Khanna should resist “political pressure” and instead jail the gang for life, citing the youth of their clients, who are all in their teens or 20s.
The gang’s relatives had also been pleading for their lives to be spared ahead of the announcement.
Handing down his verdict at the end of a seven-month trial Tuesday, Khanna found the men guilty of the “cold-blooded” murder of a “helpless victim” whose fight for life won her the nickname of Braveheart.
Feelings have been running high in a country disgusted by daily reports of gang rapes and sex assaults on children.
A total of 1,098 cases of rape have been reported to police in Delhi alone so far this year, according to figures in The Times of India on Friday.
That represents a massive increase on the 450 recorded in the same period last year, although campaigners say the rise reflects a greater willingness by victims to come forward after the December bus attack.
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And the government is talking of heaping more taxes etc on people later in the year. They should cop on & realise you cant tax your way out of a recession. Consumers will spend less and less as the cuts go deeper.
Don’t worry people, your money and future are going to bailout out private businesses, that were mismanaged, often criminally so, and who in any normal country would have had their bondholders burnt. The irony of the a left wing party, the Shinners pointing out what is a correct thing for capitalism to do, and be backed in that by the world’s leading economists against the so called economic realists of FG and FF, whose actions are considered crazed by most of the world’s leading investors and economists. The thing is that those economists are looking at FG and FF from their own experiences, they are not aware that FG and FF will and have repeatedly driven this economy in to the mud to protect and enrich a very small no. of people that are their friends and donors. Half the population have had to lave since the foundation of the state, brought to edge of bankruptcy 4 times in 50 years, both parties are unique in the western world, having both quadrupled state debt.
Heard on the radio that we consumers are unwilling to part with our cash – cash? What cash???
and
“Michael Noonan recently urged the Irish public to get and spend” – spend what?!
It just shows how out of touch these politicians are,I barely have enough money to be able to cover my mortgage and buy groceries for the month .. ,,it really is getting to the stage where I would be better off claiming welfare..taxing the hell out of us isnt the way forward.
This grand for him is say get out and spend and on the other side Richard Bruton is planning on cutting pay to the low paid workers.
Again this government and previous one alike fail to understand that it is the low & middle income earners that spend their money in the local economy but for some reason they continue to impose higher taxes etc. onto them.
Speaking of consumer sentiment, I didn’t see The Journal cover the EU story yesterday from a Euro stat report showing that Irish people paid more for pretty much everything from alcohol, tobacco and groceries to hotels than most other EU countries. Might have something to do with consumer sentiment?
What’s new?
There is no direction out there . Until we see stability in EU we will be afraid to spend.
I spent €60 in B&Q yesterday so your welcome Mr Noonan…
I have a plan. The government should appoint one ridiculously upbeat, one nagging, and one burly Confidence Fairy! on every street.
The upbeat one will come to your door first. She will tell you how great you are, and how everything is going to turn out just fine, remind you we have close friends like Barack Obama and Queen Elizabeth rooting for us, and try to convince you to start living the high life again.
The nagging one will be next. She will tell you that you have seriously failed as a father by not going to the pub, not changing the car, not having a family holiday (in Mayo), and because you insist on your wife buying own-brand stuff in Tesco.
If these don’t get you spending again then the burly Confidence Fairy! will come to your door smelling of strong liquor. He will grab you by the scruff of the neck and drag you to the nearest ATM. He will kick you in the posterior repeatedly until you have withdrawn €1,000. He will then drag you to the pub and shout THE DRINKS ARE ON…you.
He will then drag you to every Celtic Fiasco business in your local area and kick you until you have spent all your hard earned money on vouchers for coffee shops, spas, hairdressers, dental hygienists, aromatherapy and reflexology, and on deposits for soffits, wall insulation and cobble-lock paving.
Sounds far-fetched?
Remember that pension thingy you were saving for old age?
The gov must think the people of ireland are like ATMs just put in there hands and take out what ever they want
You kind of need money to spend it in the first place, maybe that’s why people are not spending??? Just a thought!
YO NOONAYS ,SPEND SPEND SPEND EHY!!!!!!you must honestly think were gobshits DOES ANYBODY KNOW THE GREEK FOR OUR DAY IS COMMING
have your say