Fast track court judge Yogesh Khanna, who held all the accused guilty of gang rape and murder of the physiotherapy student on a bus here in December last, cited their robbing another passenger of Rs. 1,500-1,600 and pushing him out before hoodwinking the girl and her male friend into getting into the bus.
This the judge did to back up his ruling that the accused had entered into a conspiracy to gang-rape the woman.
As for the charge of murder, Mr. Khanna said the accused had planned it, going by the brutality with which they hit the victim in the abdomen with an iron rod and pierced it through her private parts. And when the rod was pulled out, her internal organs came along with it. One of the accused later pulled them out by hand. “This act of complete destruction of the most vital parts of the body can never be termed [one] intending to cause bodily injuries; rather it will be an act done with the intention of causing death.”
The judge detailed the gory scene to support his finding that the intention of the accused was to kill the victim and not to cause her injuries. So it was a clear case of murder because the accused had the intention as well as knowledge of killing the victim.
In his evidence, the victim’s friend said she cried Chhod do, Chhod do (leave me, leave me) and Mar Gai, Mar Gai , when she was being assaulted, but the accused were shouting Use Zinda Mat Chhodna , (Do not leave her alive). The judge quoted his statement verbatim to conclude that the intention was to kill her. He rejected the argument of counsel for the accused that the victim died because of medical negligence, saying the injuries were so grievous that they caused her death.
