Delhi gangrape trial starts today, govt promises swift justice

The Delhi Police is likely to file the chargesheet in the gangrape-cum-murder case of a 23-year- old girl in court in New Delhi on Thursday and will seek death penalty for the accused during the trial.

A senior police official said the chargesheet is expected to be filed on

Thursday against five of the six accused in the December 16 brutal gangrape and assault case of the girl, who died in a Singapore hospital on December 29.

The sixth person apprehended in the case has claimed that he is a minor and his case will be tried in Juvenile Justice Board. A separate police report will be sent to the Board after a bone test confirms that he is a minor.

"The charge sheet will be in e-format as we do usually," the official said.

Sources said that the main chargesheet will comprise 50 pages and will be accompanied by hundreds of pages of annexures.

Charges of gangrape, murder, kidnapping, criminal assault and robbery among other sections of IPC will be pressed against the accused.

The prosecution during the trial would demand death penalty for the five accused in connection with ghastly incident which stirred the conscience of the nation.

The Singapore doctor, who carried out the postmortem of rape victim, will be included as a witness by the police in its charge sheet, the sources said.

The male friend of the victim will be the main witness in the case while the Singapore doctor, who carried out the postmortem, and the Indian mission official who received her death certificate, would be asked to testify, they said.

Police sources had said that the six accused had also allegedly tried to mow the girl down under the bus after dumping her in south-west Delhi but her male friend had saved her from being crushed in the nick of time.

The victim, a paramedical student, was gangraped in a moving bus, brutally assaulted and then thrown out of the vehicle along with her male friend, a software engineer, who was also thrashed.

The girl and her friend were returning from the Saket mall after watching a film 'Life of Pi' and had boarded the chartered bus at Munirka for Dwarka not knowing it was plying illegally. The minor among the accused had called for passengers telling them that it was going towards their destination.