December 16 gangrape: Maneka Gandhi seeks ‘close watch’ on juvenile

Ahead of the release of the juvenile convict in the December 16 Delhi gangrape case next month, Union minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday suggested of keeping a “close watch” on the juvenile while expressing helplessness in extending punishment to him and said while law was adhered to, she was not sure whether the justice was done in one of the most gruesome cases.

“I don’t know whether justice has been served but certainly the law has been adhered to,” the minister said and added “Yes, I am afraid we are” when asked if the government was waiting for him to commit another crime.

Suggesting that a close watch be kept on the accused after he is freed after completing sentence in the gangrape and murder case, which shook the country, the minister said that she will raise the issue with the authorities.

Reacting to the impending release of the accused, the minister said that “justice should not be confused with law” and “he is being freed because law demands it as he was juvenile at the time of commission of crime”, she said.

“Let us not confuse justice with the law. The law said that he could only go to a children home... That’s the anomaly we are trying to correct. So, he served his sentence and in according to the law he is coming out. And there is nothing we can do about it until or unless he commits another crime. So that is all we can do,” she added.

On December 15, the juvenile found guilty in the 2012 Delhi gangrape, will be released. He has turned 21 and will complete his three-year term at the prohibition centre. He was 17-and-a-half, the youngest of six men who raped and brutally tortured the 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus in the capital.

The victim died 13 days later in a hospital in Singapore where she was taken for the treatment by the government. While one died in the jail, the other four other men found guilty in the case are on death row.