Name: Anonymous 2013-12-30 12:00
India commemorates death of Delhi gang-rape victim
Activist sitting near the effigies of the rapists yesterday as they marked the first anniversary of the death of a gang-rape victim in New Delhi. The rape and the woman's subsequent death stirred nationalwide anger towards the country's treatment of women.
NEW DELHI - India held candlelight vigils and prayers to mark the one-year anniversary of the death of a student who was gang-raped on a Delhi bus.
The 23-year-old physiotherapy student was attacked by six men as she returning home from the cinema with a male companion. On Dec 29 last year, she died from severe injuries in a Singapore hospital, where she was being treated.
The attack and her subsequent death shook the country, shone a global spotlight on India's treatment of women and unleashed public anger about sexual violence and harassment of women.
The victim's family will hold a religious ceremony in their ancestral village in northern Uttar Pradesh state, away from the media attention they have faced since the attack, her brother said.
"We want to remember her in a quiet way, away from all the glare. We want it to be a private family moment," the brother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told Agence France-Presse.
The student, who was assaulted repeatedly with an iron rod, had suffered from ruptured lungs and badly damaged intestines. But she had been praised for her determination to report her attackers to the police before she died of her injuries.
Four of her attackers were convicted and given the death penalty in September after the case was fast-tracked, while a juvenile was sentenced to a detention centre. The sixth man died in prison in March in an apparent suicide.
The angry and sometimes violent protests against the attack jolted India's Parliament, which this year passed tougher laws against rapists and other sex-crime offenders.
Womens groups say some improvements have been made in the past 12 months to India's notoriously slow, inefficient and sometimes corrupt police and judicial systems, which has encouraged some victims to report sexual crimes against them.
In capital, a small group of students and workers gathered at Jantar Mantar yesterday, a protest site in the city centre where a makeshift memorial had been set up for the victim.
They urged lawmakers to push ahead with reforms aimed at reducing crimes against women, including speeding up the justice system. "A lot more still needs to be done to ensure that India becomes an absolute rape-free nation," said student Akash Kumar from the nearby town of Gurgaon.
Others at the memorial pushed for a fresh national debate on lowering from 18 the age at which juveniles are tried as adults for heinous crimes.
"We need to remind society that sex crimes won't be tolerated any more," said student Ishaan Ahmed.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Activist sitting near the effigies of the rapists yesterday as they marked the first anniversary of the death of a gang-rape victim in New Delhi. The rape and the woman's subsequent death stirred nationalwide anger towards the country's treatment of women.
NEW DELHI - India held candlelight vigils and prayers to mark the one-year anniversary of the death of a student who was gang-raped on a Delhi bus.
The 23-year-old physiotherapy student was attacked by six men as she returning home from the cinema with a male companion. On Dec 29 last year, she died from severe injuries in a Singapore hospital, where she was being treated.
The attack and her subsequent death shook the country, shone a global spotlight on India's treatment of women and unleashed public anger about sexual violence and harassment of women.
The victim's family will hold a religious ceremony in their ancestral village in northern Uttar Pradesh state, away from the media attention they have faced since the attack, her brother said.
"We want to remember her in a quiet way, away from all the glare. We want it to be a private family moment," the brother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told Agence France-Presse.
The student, who was assaulted repeatedly with an iron rod, had suffered from ruptured lungs and badly damaged intestines. But she had been praised for her determination to report her attackers to the police before she died of her injuries.
Four of her attackers were convicted and given the death penalty in September after the case was fast-tracked, while a juvenile was sentenced to a detention centre. The sixth man died in prison in March in an apparent suicide.
The angry and sometimes violent protests against the attack jolted India's Parliament, which this year passed tougher laws against rapists and other sex-crime offenders.
Womens groups say some improvements have been made in the past 12 months to India's notoriously slow, inefficient and sometimes corrupt police and judicial systems, which has encouraged some victims to report sexual crimes against them.
In capital, a small group of students and workers gathered at Jantar Mantar yesterday, a protest site in the city centre where a makeshift memorial had been set up for the victim.
They urged lawmakers to push ahead with reforms aimed at reducing crimes against women, including speeding up the justice system. "A lot more still needs to be done to ensure that India becomes an absolute rape-free nation," said student Akash Kumar from the nearby town of Gurgaon.
Others at the memorial pushed for a fresh national debate on lowering from 18 the age at which juveniles are tried as adults for heinous crimes.
"We need to remind society that sex crimes won't be tolerated any more," said student Ishaan Ahmed.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE