Burn them alive: Dec 16 rape victim’s last testimony

www.mangaloretoday.com

New Delhi, Sep 10, 2013 (DHNS): Her cries for help went unheeded as the six people, including a  juvenile, tortured her for an hour, took turns to rape her, bit her, hit her with an iron rod, shoved it inside her and even used hands to tear her inner organs out, the gang rape victim said in her last testimony.

In her four-page statement in Hindi to the magistrate five days after the barbaric attack on her, the 23-year-old paramedical trainee, who was admitted to a city hospital in a critical condition, pleaded with the authorities to "burn them alive".

 

The statement, which is available with IANS and forms part of the 1,000-page charge sheet submitted by the police to the court, clearly states how the young woman was brutally tortured for an hour in a moving bus and how she fainted a couple of times, but was beaten back to consciousness to undergo more unspeakable indignities.

The charge sheet also has a handwritten statement of the victim, which has barely 20 words scribbled by her in her semi-conscious state. It was written Dec 25. The girl mentions the rod used against her in the note.  A Delhi court Tuesday convicted four men for the Dec 16, 2012, gang rape and murder.

IANS has reproduced the last words of the woman who died 13 days after her gang rape - minus some of the graphic and numbing details that she revealed to a woman magistrate of Delhi.

"I was returning after watching ’Life of Pi’ from Select City mall in Saket. We took an auto from there and reached Munirka. Here we saw a white coloured bus. The conductor of the bus was announcing that the bus was going to Palam and Dwarka. As I had to go to that side, my friend and I boarded the bus. We gave Rs.20 as ticket.

"When I entered the bus, I saw six to seven people sitting. I thought they are all passengers. I sat in the front seat. The bus had yellow curtains and red seats. The windows were closed and had tinted glass panes. I could see from inside, but no one could see from outside.

"After settling in, I looked again at my co-passengers and got little suspicious. But by that time I had already paid the money and the bus had started.

"Five minutes after boarding the bus, the conductor closed the bus gates and switched off the lights. One of the persons then came to my friend and started abusing him.

"While three-four held him, the rest dragged me to the back seat of the bus. They tore off my clothes and then took turns to rape me. They hit me with the rod and bit me.

"Before this, they had snatched the wallet and mobile of my friend. "Six of them raped me by turns. While one of them shoved the rod inside, another one used his hand to tear my organs out.

"The torture continued for one hour in the moving bus. They took turns driving the bus and raping me. "From their appearance they looked like drivers and their helpers. I was losing consciousness, but they hit me repeatedly to wake me up.

"My friend tried to save me. But he was also badly beaten up with the rod. He also lost consciousness. They then stripped us and believing that we are dead, threw us out of the moving bus.

"We were both without clothes on the street. A passer-by called the police. "They should be hanged so that such an incident does not happen with another woman. They should be burned alive," the young woman, who died Dec 29 at a hospital in Singapore where she was flown by the government after a national outcry and massive protests, said in the statement.

The answer was to the magistrate’s question on what punishments the accused deserved from the court.