Delhi gang-rape: Trial set to begin; chargesheet to be filed today

Zeenews Bureau

New Delhi: The Delhi Police will file a chargesheet in connection with the gang-rape-cum-murder case of a 23-year- old girl in the metropolitan magistrate`s court in Saket on Thursday. The case will then be moved to the fast-track court to hear it on a day-to-day trial basis. The Delhi Police will seek death penalty for the accused during the trial. Reports say the 1,000-page chargesheet will be filed at 2 pm. A senior police official said the chargesheet is expected to be filed against five of the six accused in the December 16 brutal gang-rape 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 chargesheet will be in e-format as we do usually," the official said. Charges of gang-rape, 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 post-mortem of rape victim, will be included as a witness by the police in its chargesheet, 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 post-mortem, 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 gang-raped 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. (With Agency inputs)