Remembering Nirbhaya: Eight years of gangrape-murder case that shook nation

The December 16, 2012 gangrape case had shaken the conscience of the entire nation. The incident involved rape and fatal assault of a young girl in south Delhi's Munirka locality.

A 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern, Jyoti Singh (Nirbhaya), was beaten, gang-raped, and tortured in a private bus in which she was travelling with her friend. The nature of the rape was extremely brutal.

Six people travelling on the bus raped the girl and beat her friend when he tried to stop them. She was later thrown on the roadside in the extreme cold with very little clothes on.

Even after the gruesome act, Nirbhaya survived for almost 12-13 days. Eleven days after the assault she was transferred to a hospital in Singapore for emergency treatment, where she succumbed to her injuries

The incident was widely condemned and covered by Indian and world media. There was a widespread protest in the country against the Delhi government and the police for their lacklustre attitude.

All the six accused were arrested and charged with sexual assault and murder. One of the accused, Ram Singh, died of possible suicide in police custody, while four other defendants were pronounced guilty of rape and murder by the lower court in 2013 and were sentenced to death by hanging.

The accused then approached the High Court in March 2014 but the court upheld the order. Thereafter they approached the Supreme Court which also upheld the death penalty for all the four convicts by calling the Nirbhaya case "rarest of rare". On March 20 this year, the four death-row convicts were hanged.

It is to be noted that the fifth accused was given a maximum sentence of three years' imprisonment in a reform facility as he was a juvenile.