Delhi gangrape case: Police filed chargesheet on Thursday

Delhi Police has sought death penalty for the accused during the trial.

The chargesheet is in e- format  to maintain secrecy of content and facilitate fast trial. The trial in the case will begin on Thursday and there will be day-to-day  hearing at the Saket court.

The prosecution has said that it will try to finish the trial in a month even as the Saket District Court Bar Association on Wednesday passed a resolution saying none of the lawyers would defend any of the accused in the brutal gangrape case.

"The charge sheet is in e-format as we do usually," the official said. Sources said that the main charge sheet will comprise 50 pages and will be accompanied by hundreds of pages of annexures.

The Delhi Police has readied a 1000-page chargesheet and will be citing 30 witnesses in the case.

While inaugurating the fast-track courts at Saket, the Chief Justice of India had sharp words for the police and a word of caution for protesters. He said, "If the Supreme Court directive to remove tinted glasses (from buses) was followed strictly, this may not have happened." He further said: "Some people are demanding that we should hang them immediately. But we must balance things. Let us not get carried away. We must restore the faith of the people in the judiciary."

Meanwhile, the Delhi Police Commissioner on Wednesday appeared before the Parliament Committee on Women Empowerment and announced that every police station in the city will have one designated policeman to deal with crimes against women.There have been protests across the nation demanding stricter laws for sexual offences and harsher punishments for accused.
   

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.

Charges of gangrape, 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.

Witnesses in the case

The Singapore doctor, who carried out the postmortem of rape victim, will be included as a witness by the police in its charge sheet, 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 postmortem, 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 girl who was gangraped on December 16  died in a Singapore hospital on December 29.

 The victim, a paramedical student, was gangraped 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.