Delhi gang-rape case: Two convcits claim they were not among six

Two of the four death row convicts in the December 16 gang-rape case on Thursday claimed before the Delhi High Court that they were not among the six persons who had raped the girl in the moving bus in New Delhi.

Appearing for convicts Akshay Thakur and Vinay Sharma, counsel A P Singh told this to the bench of Justices Reva Khetrapal and Pratibha Rani who are hearing their appeal against the trial court's conviction and sentence.

The trial court had ordered their hanging in the offence of murder and gangrape of the 23-year-old paramedic.

"In the FIR, there was no description of present two convicts (Akshay and Vinay) and also of the bus in which the alleged incident happened on the night of December 16, 2012. As per the prosecution, there was six men in the alleged bus when the girl was gangraped by them.

"Doctor Rashmi Ahuja, who gave treatment to the victim at Safdarjung Hospital and who is the independent witness in the case, had said in the medical report that the victim was raped twice or only by two men," the counsel said, adding the victim has also never said about the number of assailants in the bus, the police had deliberately inserted the names later", he said.

Initially, the police had arrested six persons, including the juvenile. However, main accused Ram Singh was found hanging in his cell at Tihar, so the proceedings against him stood abetted.

The juvenile was handed three years at the correction home prescribed under the Juvenile Justice Act. The adult accused Akshay, Vinay, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh were sentenced to death by a trial court in September.

The counsel for Akshay and vinay also told the court that the girl died in India and the doctors have not given her better treatment which they could have done easily.