The girl's parents say nothing short of a death sentence will be justice enough.
"I can never forget how she wept in hospital and said 'they beat me so badly,'" says the mother of the 23-year-old medical student who was brutally gang-raped on a moving bus in Delhi on December 16 last year.
The mother was the first to meet her young daughter in hospital three days after the attack. She was also with her when she died 13 days later of her grievous injuries in a Singapore hospital.
A Delhi court will pronounce verdict today on the role of four adult men accused of the horrific attack. (
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The girl's parents are present at the Saket court for the verdict. They say nothing short of a death sentence will be justice enough. "The way these men assaulted her I can't tell you. But the world knows. The world stood behind us and fought with us. These men should be hung till death because they don't deserve to live in our society," the mother, weeping bitterly, said last night.
"We are all waiting in anticipation. This is an important verdict not only for us but for the whole country.... If they are not sentenced to death then it's a matter of shame for the entire country," her husband said.
Ten days ago, a juvenile board verdict bitterly disappointed the parents. One of the attackers, who was 17 at the time of the assault, was sentenced to three years in a reform centre, the maximum punishment for a juvenile found guilty of rape and murder. (
Juvenile found guilty of rape and murder, gets less than three years in reform home)
The student's parents wept after that verdict, describing it as grossly inadequate. "It is a crime to be born a girl in this country," said her father.
It has been a turbulent nine months for the parents of the 23-year-old student. This was the daughter they sold their only piece of land to educate. She was the pivot of hope and aspiration in their cramped household in a crowded Delhi locality. "We are still fighting," the mother says.