Society, govt should come forward to work for women's safety: Nirbhaya's mother

New Delhi: Asha Devi, mother of the paramedic student who was gang raped and brutalised in a moving bus in the national capital on December 16, 2012, has urged the society and the government to come forward and work for women's safety.

The 23-year-old woman had succumbed to injuries on December 29, 2012.

"Every morning when I get up, I am determined that today things will change. But daughters are still becoming victims of heinous crimes. To stop all this, there is a need of a strong law. For this, the society and government should come together," she said at an event here to mark the incident.

The programme was organised by Nirbhaya Jyoti Trust. BJP MP Udit Raj, who was also present at the event, said the patriarchal mindset prevailing in the country needed to be changed and that crime against women was a product of the present social and cultural system.

"Even women are proud of this culture which is 'anti-women.' When the Supreme Court order allowing women's entry into Sabarimala temple is not followed, what worst can happen? Women have been victims of this culture since ages. Even Vedas and Ramcharitmanas are full of instances of anti-women mindset.

"Incidents like the December 16 gang grape-murder are by-products of this socio-religious system which we have made," he said.

Congress leader Sharmistha Mukherjee said merely making laws was not enough.

"Their implementation and making people aware about the laws are equally important," she said.

In one of the most horrendous incidents the nation has ever witnessed, six men had raped the paramedic student, and assaulted her and her male friend in a moving bus as it drove through the streets of Delhi.

She was thrown out of the bus - so grievously injured that her insides were spilling out.

A fortnight later, on December 29, 2012, she succumbed in a Singapore hospital.

The Supreme Court had in July upheld the death sentence for four men – Mukesh (29), Pawan (22), Vinay Sharma (23) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) – convicted of the rape and murder of the young woman who came to be known as 'Nirbhaya', the fearless.

A fifth accused, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail in March in 2013 and the sixth, a convicted juvenile was sentenced to three years of punishment in a reform home, and released in 2015.