Jyoti Singh Pandey: Gang Rape Victim Dying Declaration to Doom Perpetrators
Jyoti Singh Pandey, the 23-year-old physiotherapy student who died after being brutally gang raped by six men in a moving Delhi bus last December 16, provided a "dying declaration" in which she named her six attackers and described the gruesome details of the attack she underwent before dying on December 29 in a Singapore hospital.
According to The Telegraph, the victim — known as "India's daughter" — was beaten so badly that 95% of her intestines had to be removed. In addition, Jyoti's suffered "severe internal and brain injuries, a heart attack and abdominal infections."
Meanwhile, lawyers for four of the five men who were charged in court earlier this week with murder, kidnap and gang rape said they would plead not guilty and claim they were "tortured by police into making false confessions." A sixth defendant, who is 17-years-old, will be tried in a juvenile court.
However, the victim's December 21 "dying declaration" made to a magistrate "as she fought to survive her injuries" in Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital eight days before she died, might derail this course of action.
According to the testimony, Jyoti and her friend — Awninder Pandey — boarded "a white chartered bus" after watching the movie film The Life of Pi at Delhi's Citywalk mall trying to reach Dwarka — the district where she lived. There were six or seven "apprehensive" men in the bus she assumed were just passengers. The rest of the graphic declaration continues as follows:
The conductor closed the doors of the bus. He closed the lights of the bus and came towards my friend and started abusing and beating him. They held his hands and held me and took me to the back of the bus. They tore my clothes and raped me in turns. They hit me with an iron rod and bit me on my entire body with their teeth.
They took all belongings, my mobile phone, purse, credit card, debit card, watches etc. Six people raped me in turns for nearly one hour in a moving bus. The driver of the bus kept changing so that he could also rape me.
Jyoti claimed people outside the moving bus couldn't hear her screams, and that the attackers had snatched her cell phone. She did, however, name her attackers:
I heard these people saying 'catch them, tear their clothes, hit them, take her bag' and using abusive language. Ram Singh, Thakkur, Raju, Mukesh, Pawan, Vinay etc were their names. We were all the time in total darkness, they were all looking black. By their language they were illiterate, driver-cleaner type people.
Half of the time I was unconscious, but whenever I came to consciousness they beat me up. My friend tried to save me but these people beat him every time he came forward to save me. They also beat him with an iron rod and hit him in the head.
Do you think this testimony will help bring justice to this heartbreaking case?
