Delhi Gang Rape Trial Begins

Five men accused of the brutal gang rape and murder of a student in Delhi have gone on trial in a new fast-track court in the Indian capital that was set up after the incident to bring speedy justice to victims of sexual violence.
The attack on 16 December provoked outrage and grief in India, with protests across the country. It has led to an unprecedented national debate and calls for widespread changes in cultural attitudes as well as policing and legal reform.
The five men on trial could face the death sentence if convicted. A sixth accused, believed to be 17 years old, is likely to face a separate proceedings.
The trial is being held behind closed doors, with media excluded. The men arrived at the courtroom wearing hoods. A date will be set later on Monday for the next hearing.
Police say the victim and a male friend were heading home from an evening movie when they boarded the bus. The attackers beat the man and raped the woman, causing her massive internal injuries with a metal bar, police said.
The victims were eventually dumped on the roadside, and the woman died two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.
Attacks that previously would have received little publicity are now frontpage news in India. In the north-western Punjab state they have included a 17-year-old who killed herself after being repeatedly raped by two men in December, a woman raped by six men after being hauled from a bus in which she was the only passenger and another raped by two men after being drugged last weekend. An attack by five men on a teenager in Haryana state has also been reported, as well as the rape of a minor in Rajasthan.
In the Delhi case, prosecutors have said DNA evidence links the accused to the crime, but defence lawyers say police "tortured" and beat their clients into making confessions. Such abuse is systemic in India. One lawyer said he would ask the supreme court to move the trial out of New Delhi to ensure his client got a fair trial.
The fast-track courts are among the measures taken or being considered by authorities to tackle the problem of sexual violence and particularly the impunity of many offenders. Many families pressure relatives who have been assaulted not to press charges, police often refuse to file cases for those who do and courts rarely deliver swift justice in the few cases that are filed. Indian courts had a backlog of 33m cases as of 2011.
Delhi police records show a rise in reported rape cases in 2012 of nearly a quarter, taking the total to 702. The numbers increased at the end of the year in the city, which has a population of around 15 million. Only one of the 635 rape cases filed in the capital last year has ended in a conviction so far.
Police said it was not realistic to expect crimes committed late last year to have wound their way through the system yet.
Ranjana Kumari, a women's activist and director of the Centre for Social Research, a New Delhi based thinktank, said the fast-track courts were an important step for clearing some of the 95,000 rape cases pending in India.
"We need a system in which women can get justice quickly. Otherwise, in the normal course of things, it can take 10 or 12 or 14 years for cases to be taken up by the court. That is tantamount to denying justice to the victim," she said.
Others, however, are worried that fast-track courts sacrifice justice for speed, overlooking evidence, limiting the cross-examination of witnesses and racing through hearings. They also point out that long delays are possible when convictions in those courts are appealed.
Authorities are moving to increase recruitment of women police officers and train more for higher rank. The ministry of home affairs has announced that legislation on sexual harassment – known euphemistically in India as "eve-teasing" – will be tightened.