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Brian Ghilliotti: Middlesex Community College: Sociology 241: Juvenile Delinquency: Jyoti Singh Sexual Assault Case
Brian Ghilliotti: Middlesex Community College: Sociology 241: Juvenile Delinquency: Jyoti Singh Sexual Assault Case
Brian Ghilliotti
11/25/2017
On the night of December 16th, 2012, Jyoti Singh, 23, and her male friend, Awindra
Pratap Pandey, 28 (1), were looking for a ride home after watching the movie Life of Pi in an
upscale neighborhood of South Delhi (2). At the time, Jyoti Singh was going to school to
become a physiotherapist and attended college in Dehradun to pursue this goal. Her family
financed these educational expenses by selling part of her ancestral land. Jyoti covered her
Jyoti met her friend Awindra Pratap Pandey through a friend at her call center job.
Pandey was an information technology specialist, coming from a much higher Indian social
caste than Jyoti. Therefore formal marriage would be very dicult for the couple. (1) In India,
the social caste system, which is a social stratification system justifies a present quality of life
on the deeds of supposedly past lives. Eorts have been made to dismantle this system, but
political leaders have kept it alive by building constituencies based on caste identity. (3)
They finally found a bus by 9:30 at night, occupied by six individuals. Two of these
individuals, Ram and Mukesh Singh, were residents of the Ravi Das Colony of Delhi, which was
a vast community (some would call it a slum) of poor Indians who migrated to the City of Delhi
for jobs and better incomes. That was the case of Ram and Mukesh Singhs parents, who
migrated to Delhi in 1997 when they saw no future remaining in the countryside as landless
laborers. Since they felt that life really didnt improve much in New Delhi, they decided to move
back in the countryside while Ram and Mukesh Singh stayed in the city (1).
The Singh brothers were known amongst their neighbors for their drunkenness, petty
crimes, and occasional violent behavior. These patterns were more likely to happen when the
two brothers were together. Mukesh Singh was the younger of the two brothers, and he was
described by neighbors as fine on his own but dierent when he was with his brother.
The older brother, Ram Singh, was a bus driver by living. He was married to a divorced
women who later passed away from cancer. After her death, he developed a drinking problem,
which lead to violent behavior. To make his problems worse, he got into an accident with a lorry
Previously that day Ram Singh had returned home visiting relatives. He was greeted by
Raju, a 17 year old drifter who worked with him as an assistant on his bus. He wanted to know
if Ram Singh was able to pay back some money that he had borrowed from him, and decided
to stay in the residence of the Singh brothers once he realized that the money was not ready.
Ram Singh also permitted another homeless person to stay at his residence, 28 year old
Akshay Thakur, who was also an assistant that supported Ram Singhs bus operations.
The seventeen year old, whose identity had been protected at the time oft he crime due
to juvenile oender laws, was only known to the Indian press as Raju. He came from the
same countryside province as Singh brothers, Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh is once of Indias
In Uttar Pradesh, rape against women is common, and women face the constant a
threat of sexual harassment. Gang rape is frequent, and in numerous cases rape victims are
forced to marry their assailants. Police rarely register complaints, let alone investigate. This is
probably the result of police resource limitations and poor social attitudes toward women in
that region of India. Many women chose to kill themselves rather than face the stigma of being
dishonored," and ocial responses to rape usually try to blame the victim by suggesting that
Raju was sent to Delhi to find work at the age of 11, where he barely made a living
serving in the food industry of another rural migrant slum called Trilokpuri. Raju was sent to
New Delhi to find work and help his parents make money, but after a while they stopped
receiving money from him and lost track of him. Meanwhile, Ram Singh met Raju at the eating
Rajus co-worker, Akshay Thakur, also came from a rural village in India. He left his
home at Patna, the state capital of Bihar province, east of Uttar Pradesh. He was looking for
work elsewhere and spent five years doing poorly paid, heavy labor jobs such as working in
The Sing brothers, Raju, and Akshay Thakur had spent the time before the rape
partying with each other for about three hours. By 8:00 at night they received a message
from the owner of the bus he drove for a living requesting that they pick up a cylinder of
cooking gas. Ram Singh then turned to his party of friends and said , Lets go out and have
While the party left to start the bus, they called on others to join them. Pawan Gupta,
who was a 19 year old student who made his living selling fruits, heeded their call. Gupta was
also form Uttar Pradesh, and gave up his education by helping his parents run their fruit stall.
He hoped to return to school, but realized this was not going to happen after falling in with the
Gupta was also joined by Vinay Sharma, 20, who was the son of an airport cleaner. He
worked part time in a gym as a cleaner and instructor. This gym was frequented by New Delhis
elite, who resided a few miles away, and he earned 5000 rupees a month from this position. All
of his earnings were given to his parents. He had little time for school, but was trying to better
Mukesh Singh was driving the bus. As the group drove through Delhi, he stopped at a
designated bus stop. Raju then yelled to anyone at the bus stop if they were going to Nehru
Place, a shopping center and oce complex a few miles away. They kept up this pattern for
about ten minutes at other bus stops when a carpenter on his way home finally responded to
By 8:30, after they failed to lure additional passengers on their bus, the bus headed to a
suburb called Munrika. All the while, the group sat on the bus posing as passengers. Raju had
been stationed at the front, calling in passengers (1). At that point the group assaulted the
carpenter, 35 year old Ram Adhar, and stole 1500 rupees in cash and his cell phone. They then
dumped his body at a section of road known in Delhi as the IIT Flyover. Not content with their
previous catch," the rouge bus crew sought other victims. Meanwhile, Ram Adhar reported
the incident to three constables who were on patrol. They responded that the incident was not
part of their jurisdiction, and that he would have to report the incident to Vasant Vihar police
Part of the national outrage that followed this incident was based on the fact that it
could have been prevented if the three local constables who received Ram Adhars complaint
had reacted more seriously and initiated alerts for the presence of this pirate bus to law
enforcement units in the city. By December 21, 2012, the Delhi High Court reprimanded the
Delhi Police for being evasive when investigating a status report providing details of the bus
The following day, the Delhi Police initiated action against the three constables for
failing to take action by putting out an alert for the bus that would later be used to carry out the
rape. By December 24, 2012, two Assistant Commissioners of Police were also suspended for
By the time Ram Adhar was trying to alert the police, the rouge bus was approaching
the Munrika neighborhood. Jyoti Singh and her friend Awindra Pratap Pandey had just
convinced an auto rickshaw driver to take them to a bus stop at Munrika, where they had to
look for other options to get home. It was at this point that the two friends were approached by
the rouge bus. They sat down in the bus thinking that the rest of the occupants were
passengers.
As the bus drove o, Ran Singh approached Pandey and asked him what he was doing
with a female at that time of night. Pandey replied that it was none of their business, and soon
there was a confrontation. While the bus was driving through heavy trac, Jyoti Singh banged
on the buss curtained window while Pandey was quickly subdued by the passenger assailants
with an iron bar. His clothes were then stepped as he lost consciousness.
The bus continued moving, and once Pandey was subdued, Jyoti was dragged to the
back of the bus and raped. This review will not go into the details of the rape, other than to
mention that Ram Singh initiated it and that Jyoti was penetrated with the same iron bar that
was used to knock Pandey unconscious. At some point Ram Singh exchanged places with
Mukesh Singh, giving him a chance to commit the sexual assault (2).
Pandey regained some consciousness and overheard the group discussing what should
be done with the victims. He overheard that they thought they were both dead, so he
continued to play dead. The group decided to simply throw them out of the bus. By 9:45 at
night the bus was seen on CCTV in the Mahipalpur neighborhood of Delhi, where they decided
After the bus got rid of its victims, an eort was made to run them over, but Padney was
able to muster himself and pull Jyoti out of the way. There must have been some trac nearby,
as no future eort was made to pursue their victims. The rouge bus crew simply chose to make
They then returned to Ravi Das Colony, made a thorough attempt to wash the bus of
any blood, feces, and other evidence found on the bus, and burned the victims clothes. Then
they tried to divide the money and other aects they stole from their victims, but this was not
done without arguments, which the residents of the slum overheard (2).
Meanwhile, the couple lay in a state of semi-conscious for about forty minutes before
someone alerted a local constable, despite the fact that there were passerby. They were finally
taken into medical care. The extent of Jyotis injuries included damage to her genitals, uterus,
and intestines. She was in critical condition. Pandey was able to recover.
Despite the rouge bus crews eorts to clean up the evidence, the Delhi police were
able to find the bloody bar that was used to assault both her and Pandey after they were able
to trace and identify the bus. Police used a combination of testimony from Pandey and Jyoti
Protests in Delhi were already developing as soon as December 18th, 2012. Political
leaders were immediately calling for the death penalty. These protests escalated by December
20th, when student groups from Jawaharlal University, Delhi University, and Jamia Milia
becoming violent, with clashes between protestors and police. One police ocer suered
serious injuries during the riots, who would later die. Jyotis health remained critical, and
Indias Criminal Law so as to provide a quicker trial with enhanced punishment for those
Jyoti passed away from internal injuries by December 29th, which inspired more
peaceful rallies in cities throughout India to keep pressure on the Indian government to push
tougher measures against those who commit crimes against women. Five days prior, to of the
assailants had admitted their guilt and stated that they deserved capital punishment (5).
A speedy trial was granted by January 3rd, 2013. Five of the assailants were tried as
adults, while the sixth, Raju, was selected for trial under a juvenile court on account of his age.
On March 11, 2013, Ram Singh was found dead in his jail cell. Ten days later, India approved
tougher anti rape laws to punish sex crimes, which included capital punishment for repeat
oenders (5).
By September 13, 2013, the local court system awarded the four remaining adult
oenders the death sentence for their crimes. The case was passed onto the Delhi High Court,
which upheld the death penalty on March 13th, 2013. However, once the case was passed to
the Supreme Court of India, the death sentence was stayed by July 14, 2014 (5).
Finally, and May 5th, 2017, the Indian Supreme Court decided to uphold the death
sentence for the four remaining adults (5). Critics of the Indian Supreme Court maintained that
public outrage in rape cases seems selective, and that were are numerous cases female
sexual assaults that received scant attention in India. In light of this, they argued that upholding
the death sentence in this case is problematic, especially in light of the murder rape cases that
have gone unnoticed in the Indian public, particularly where the victim is on the margins of
What made the Joyti rape case more outrageous than the rape cases of other women
who live on the margins on Indian society, they asked? These critics often pointed to another
gang rape case involving a group of Hindu men assaulting a Muslim woman during sectarian
riots in the western Indian State of Gujarat in 2002. This case was finally resolved when the
Mumbai High Court upheld the convictions of the Hindu assailants, but it took fifteen years to
process, especially since there was no general public outrage associated with it. Tougher laws
against rape as a consequence of the Jyoti Singh case may be a positive thing, but it remains
Another controversial aspect of this case is the trial status of Raju," who was the
youngest of her assaulters. Raju was classified as a juvenile by Indias Juvenile Justice
Board, and under current laws governing the processing of juvenile oenders in India, he could
only be held in a special home for a year, until the age of 18, before he had to be released.
This situation angered many in India, which helped inspire clashes at many Universities in New
youthful oenders between the ages of 16-18 to be tried as adults if they commit serious
oenses such as rape and murder (8). Though this may be seen as a positive development, it
also has its risks. In any case, this change could have huge implications on Indian society.
According to one study, around 41% of Indias youth is below the age of 20 (9), and most of
It is quite possible that this statistic could grow, as it is common for families in societies
with extreme poverty to produce as many children as they can to help promote individual
survival. In the larger picture, however, this promotes even greater poverty throughout society.
Like all adjustments to the law, there are good and bad consequences. This
amendment expands the amount of Indias population that is subject to capital punishment by
41%, and with that change comes opportunities for those who might want to abuse these
changes related to youthful oender laws. These people could range from wealthy plaintis
who have a personal vendetta against another family, or it cold include lawyers who may want
The Joyti rape case also exposed a dark side of Indian society, which are poor social
attitudes toward gender issues throughout India, which often leads to sexual assault. It is so
common that it is considered a hobby by some of the males who carry out this behavior, which
is known eves-teasing (10). The roots of these poor social attitudes towards women
stems from cultural standards that emphasize masculinity over feminism, especially in the rural
areas. Also, a resource deprived education system in the rural areas of India does little to help,
The psychological impetus behind most rape behavior is to gain a sense of power and
control that the assailant enjoys over their victim. Given the extreme poverty and frustration
that many of the marginalized populations face in India, a pandemic of rape against women
may serve as a way of feeling of power and control in a situation where they feel powerless
(11). This is counter productive, as it helps contribute to a multitude of public safety, legal,
social, and mental health issues that are destructive toward sustaining the family as the
When reviewing the youths who were Ram Singhs accomplices, many of them came
from marginalized backgrounds with impoverished families who could do little to help them
achieve their life goals. In the cases of Akshay Thakur and Raju," there did not seem to be
any supporting family structure at all. We get the impression that Ram Singh was intentionally
seeking youths o this type in order to from a gang and the sense of control that comes with
According to the text, one explanation for gang formation is the result of lower class,
marginalized youths seeking a form of status. This option would seem appealing to youths
facing real or perceived marginalization factors that may include sectarian, racial,
psychological, and economic issues. Many of these youths have dysfunctional or destitute
families who can do little to support them with their status oriented goals. Other conventional
institutions for socialization, such as schools, are weak or unavailable. So these youths join
gangs to help achieve the social status and goals they seek (12). This appeared to be the case
with the youth that Ram Singh was attracting. We get the feeling that Ram Singh was possibly
using his rape bus as a mechanism to encourage his youthful accomplishes to perform a
It is good that the Joyti Singh rape case helped bring awareness and initiate justice to
the poor state of gender aairs in India. We must now complete this justice process by looking
at the social decay factors that encouraged her assailants to make the poor decisions they
made. Justice does not come about by institutionalized retribution, for institutionalized
retribution does not want to look at both sides of the process objectively and evenly. It only
leaves unaddressed the social decay factors that led to the outrageous crimes in the first
place.
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Notes
(1) Burke, Jason. Delhi rape: how India's other half lives. The Guardian. September 6, 2013.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/10/delhi-gang-rape-india-women
(2) Unknown author. 2012 Delhi gang rape. Wikipedia. Last updated: November 23, 2017.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape#Incident
(3) Unknown author. What is Indias caste system? BBC News. July 20, 2017.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35650616
(4) Unknown author. Complete Latest Story - Delhi Gang Rape - Actual Incident of Damini
http://ftrendz.blogspot.com/2013/01/complete-latest-story-delhi-gang-rape.html
(5) Unknown author. Delhi gang rape: What happened on December 16, 2012 and status of
http://www.news18.com/news/india/delhi-gangrape-what-happened-on-
december-16-2012-and-status-of-the-case-730141.html
(6) Barry, Ellen. In Rare Move, Death Sentence in Delhi Gang Rape Case Is Upheld.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/05/world/asia/death-sentence-delhi-gang-rape.html
(7) Siegel, Larry J. & Welsh, Brandon C. Juvenile Delinquency: Theory, Practice, & Law.
(8) Mandaha, Niharika & Roy, Rajesh. India Amends Juvenile Oender In Response to Delhi
Rape Case. The Wall Street Journal. December 22, 2015. https://www.wsj.com/
articles/india-amends-juvenile-oender-law-in-response-to-delhi-rape-
case-1450796440
(9) FP Sta. Latest Census data shows youth surge: Nearly 41% of India's population is below
amends-juvenile-oender-law-in-response-to-delhi-rape-case-1450796440
(10) Banerji, Annie. Public fury over New Delhi gang-rape sparks protest across India.
fury-over-new-delhi-gang-rape-sparks-protest-across-india-idUSBRE8BK0R620121221
(11) Sharma, Ananya. Why is eve-teasing so common in India? Quora question response.
India
(12) Siegel, Larry J. & Welsh, Brandon C. Juvenile Delinquency: Theory, Practice, & Law.
Cengage Learning, Stamford, CT. Page 129. 12th Edition. 2012. Pages 344-345.