Give ‘harshest punishment’ if my son is guilty of gang rape, father says

Indian police officers lock the gate of the police station during a protest condemning the gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a city bus late Sunday in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012. Tsering TopgyalAP

New Delhi, Dec 18 (IANS) The father of one of the accused arrested in the Delhi gang-rape case Tuesday said if his juvenile son was guilty he should be given “the harshest of punishment.”

“If my son has done it, the harshest of punishment should be given to him, otherwise he should be let off,” Hari Ram Sharma, whose undergraduate son Vinay has been arrested, told a news channel.

While Sharma claimed that Vinay, pursuing a B.Com from Delhi University, was a juvenile and would turn 18 in January 2013, Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar told reporters that none of the four “arrested accused was a minor.”

Sharma said on returning home Sunday – the day when the rape took place in a moving bus – Pawan Gupta, another accused under custody, came to their home and took Vinay along.”

“Vinay returned at 10 p.m. and went to bed. Police came to our house yesterday (Monday) and took him away for questioning,” said Sharma.

“My son was not very close to them (the other accused), they never came to our home,” he added.

Vinay lived in Ravidas Camp slums of R.K. Puram area in south Delhi and the other accused under arrest were his neighbours. The other two arrested accused are bus driver Ram Singh and his brother Mukesh.

Vunay, a gym instructor, was arrested Tuesday morning while the other three were arrested Monday. Two more accused – Akshay Thakur and Raju – are still at large.

According to police, the men were out on a joyride on the night of the incident and had been consuming liquor in the bus.

The brutal rape and torture occurred when the girl and her friend boarded a private bus at Munirka to go to Dwarka after watching a movie.

The woman was beaten up and raped inside the bus by around six men, police said.