"Hang them! Hang them!" Protesters outside an Indian courthouse chanted Tuesday, after the four men who fatally gang raped a young woman aboard a moving bus last December were convicted, and finally found guilty. The brutality of the crime has horrified and angered the public. Rapes are widespread in India, and surprisingly tolerated-with victimsProt largely gathering the blame for "inviting" the attacks.
The four men were convicted on 11 counts of rape and murder, now facing the possibility of hanging. The sentences are to be handed down on Wednesday, but hundreds of protestors have long been calling out for the death penalty since December.
The victim's parents, whose names have been mandated by law to be withheld from the public, were in tears as the convictions were read out. The four suspects were swiftly escorted from the courthouse by police officers.
The victim's father had made no secret of his desire to have the suspects hanged. "Nothing but the death penalty is acceptable to us," he said before the convictions.
The victim, who had just watched a movie at a high-end mall with her male friend last December 16, boarded a bus intending to go home, but the 6 suspects who had been joyriding on the bus beat her friend; afterwards they repeatedly raped her, inserting a rod they beat her friend with into her, causing severe internal injuries which later led to her tragic death.
The crime brought India to its senses; antiquated sexual violence laws were quickly updated, with the seven month trial being an improvement from the formerly lengthy trials that took decades. Victims were always blamed for their predicament, shunned from the society as "tainted women."
The victim's parents blamed only their daughter's rapists. The victim came from a migrant family who were hoping to ascend from poverty; they had taken a modern view on education, telling their children that a good education is the key for a better life, overlooking the tradition of sons having more education than girls. The victim was about to finish her Physiotherapy degree, the first in her family to finish college.
"I always told my children: 'If you study hard you can escape this poverty.' All my life I believed this," the heartbroken mother said earlier this year. "Now that dream has ended."
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