New Delhi — Greater than three months after the rape and homicide of a 31-year-old feminine physician in India sparked wide-scale protests throughout the nation, the trial of the one particular person accused of the brutal crime started Monday at a particular court docket within the japanese state of West Bengal. The only suspect within the case is Sanjoy Roy, a volunteer member of the Kolkata Police pressure who was formally charged with rape and homicide final week.
If convicted, Roy might face life in jail, or the loss of life penalty.
He is claimed that he is being framed, shouting from inside a police van whereas being taken from court docket to jail final week that he was fully harmless, in line with Indian media experiences.
“I’ve been silent to date. However I didn’t commit the rape and homicide. I’m being intimidated by the federal government and my very own division. They’ve requested me to not say a phrase. However I’m not responsible, I’m being framed to defend the true culprits,” he reportedly mentioned.
India was hit by widespread protests and mass docs’ strikes in August, with medics strolling off the job to demand justice for the younger physician who was discovered murdered in a lecture corridor in Kolkata’s state-run R.G. Kar Medical Faculty and Hospital on August 9.
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On the time, authorities mentioned the girl had gone to the lecture corridor to relaxation throughout an evening shift when she was attacked. An post-mortem confirmed that she was sexually assaulted earlier than she was murdered. It additionally urged she could have resisted her attacker and been tortured earlier than being killed.
Medics throughout the nation demanded safer workplaces, whereas residents demanded security for girls in a nation the place a median of 90 rapes had been reported per day in 2022, in line with the newest authorities knowledge.
About 128 witnesses are anticipated to take the stand through the trial, with hearings happening each day as authorities goal to fast-track the high-profile case. The proceedings won’t be open to the general public.
India’s Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) has additionally arrested a police officer and the superintendent of the hospital for alleged proof tampering and monetary irregularities.
The physician’s killing introduced again to the floor anger within the nation over girls’s security that final boiled over within the wake of the 2012 gang-rape and homicide of a younger girl on a New Delhi bus because it was pushed across the metropolis.
That brutal assault prompted India’s parliament to enact more durable legal guidelines on sexual violence, however it there’s been no proof that the harsher legal guidelines have lowered the variety of sexual assaults within the nation.