(Representational Image) (Representational Image)

The family of the Noida gangrape victim plans to appeal in the Delhi High Court against the trial court verdict acquitting the nine accused in the eight-year-old case, saying it was “shattered” and “disappointed” by the judgement. A close relative of the woman, who was a 24-year-old at the time of the incident, said the trial court verdict letting off the accused would send a wrong message to the society and it will encourage criminals to commit more such heinous crimes, with the victim being still traumatised.

The family of the woman, who shifted to London after the incident due to alleged threats from the accused, said they are “shattered” due to the judgement which went in favour of the accused and hopes to get justice from the superior court. “We are highly disappointed. We don’t know what to say as we still cannot believe that the accused have been acquitted despite strong evidence against them. Such a heinous crime was committed on a girl and she had identified all of them in the court. How can they be acquitted?

“If the accused are let off like this, it will send a wrong message to the society and will also encourage the criminals to commit such heinous offences,” one of the close family members of the woman said. The kin said they have not informed the woman about the judgement as she is still under trauma and has not come out of it but they will soon tell her. “We do not want this to happen with any other woman, we will continue our fight for justice and will file an appeal in the high court,” the family said.

The prosecution also plans to file an appeal challenging the trial court verdict and Special Public Prosecutor Neelam Narang, while respecting the court’s decision, said there was ample amount of evidence on record warranting conviction of all the nine accused. After going through the verdict, the prosecutor said she would recommend the case for filing an appeal before the Delhi High Court. The family said the woman cannot return home because the alleged perpetrators of the crime are roaming freely and earlier also they were threatened and asked to take back the case.

The incident took place in the evening of January 5, 2009, when the woman, along with her male friend, was returning from Great India Place Mall in their car which was forcibly stopped by several youths who were returning on motorcycles after a cricket match.

Brandishing cricket bats, four of these boys sat in the car and allegedly started beating the girl and her friend, pushed them to the back seat and drove the car to a secluded place near urban Noida village Garhi Chaukhandi, police had said. At the isolated place, their other associates also joined and 11 persons allegedly raped the girl and took away their valuables like mobile phones, wrist watch and ATM cards, it had said. The complaint was lodged with the Noida police by the victim’s friend.

The trial of the case was shifted from a Noida court to Tis Hazari Court in Delhi on the Supreme Court’s order after the victim’s friend approached it, fearing threat to his life and pressure to withdraw the case. While acquitting the accused, the Delhi court had pulled up the Noida police for not following proper procedure of the law while investigating the matter and said no judicial Test Identification Parade (TIP) of the accused was conducted by the investigating officer (IO). Though the girl had “identified” all the accused before the court during the recording of her testimony, the judge said their identification by her was “doubtful” as the alleged crime was committed in the night in a forest area where there was no source of light.

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