Death penalty charge on ‘brutes’

A protester holds a candle in New Delhi on Saturday. (AFP)

New Delhi, Dec. 29: Delhi police today charged with murder the six “darindes” — the Hindi for brutes as a woman inspector described in a draft chargesheet the men who gang-raped the trainee paramedic — after their young victim died early this morning.

Senior officials said they would file the chargesheet by January 3 in a fast-track court and seek death for the six as the case fell in the “rarest of the rare category”.

One official said the police would also seek court permission for a psychological assessment of the “psychopaths” who had shown no sign of remorse after their “barbaric” assault.

Dharmendra Kumar, special commissioner, law and order, said the police had booked the six for murder. “We hope to file the chargesheet by the 3rd of January, 2013. Section 302 of the IPC, which is the penal section for murder, has been added in the case.”

The police had initially booked the six under penal code sections such as 307 (attempt to murder), 201 (destruction of evidence), 365 (kidnapping or abducting), 376 (2)(g) (gang rape) and 377 (unnatural offences).

Kumar said a special public prosecutor of eminence had been appointed to conduct the trial in a fast-track court day to day. “It will be our endeavour to ensure the harshest punishment in the book to the culprits.”

While her fellow cops voiced the sense of collective outrage, the woman officer tasked with jotting down in detail the December 16 assault had a copy of the Bhagvad Gita in her hand.

“Being a woman I feel more outraged. How can men brutalise a woman like this? It was one of the most barbaric and horrifying acts,” she told The Telegraph.

“I keep the holy Gita with me while writing down those horrific details to overcome my personal trauma and… pray for ensuring the harshest punishment for those darindes.”

A team of senior officials, led by DCP Chhaya Sharma, and lawyers has been formed to oversee the chargesheet and plug holes if any to make sure all the accused are convicted.

The six had gang-raped the 23-year-old and brutalised her with an iron rod inside a bus. They then stripped her and a male friend who was with her before throwing them out of the moving vehicle.

A senior official said the police had built up a “strong case” to nail the accused and ensure the death penalty. “The chargesheet will be filed along with the post-mortem report, statements of the victim and her male friend and other forensic evidence collected from the bus and blood samples collected from the accused and the victim.”

The official said the victim’s statement, recorded by a magistrate on December 25, would be treated as a dying declaration.

One official said the accused — Ram Singh, the driver, his brother Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, a fruit seller, Vinay Sharma, a gym assistant, and Akshay Thakur, the cleaner — had not shown any remorse.

The sixth, who claims to be a minor and has been kept in a juvenile home, was taken to a hospital today for an ossification test to ascertain his age.

“During interrogation they behaved normally after confessing their crime. They appear to be habitual offenders and may have been involved in other criminal cases,” the official said.

Another official drew a parallel with the Nithari murders of 19 children and women. Surender Koli, the man convicted of the killings said to have been committed between February 2005 and November 2006, is also alleged to have eaten body parts of some of his dead victims.

The official said the police would take permission from the court to get a “psychological profile done of each of the six psychopaths” to ascertain their thought process. “We had done such a profile of Koli,” he added.

In Tihar, jail officials have increased the security of five of the accused who are in judicial remand, fearing attacks from other inmates.

“They have been shifted to a solitary cell,” said a prison source.

Fellow prisoners had bashed up Mukesh after his arrest and even forced him to drink urine.