'I can put up my daughter's photo on the wall now': Nirbhaya’s mother

The woman who answered the door bell at the middle-class apartment at Dwaraka was like any other common woman in New Delhi, except for a face that reflected determination. Asha Devi spoke to Manorama about the seven-year wait for the execution of the men who brutalised her daughter, who came to symbolise the horrific violence against women as Nirbhaya.

Excerpts from a conversation with Asha Devi:

* Justice has been served, at last.

Yes. Delayed justice.

* Were the police and the court cooperative?

The police had helped a lot right from the beginning. They conducted the inquiry well. But the court…

* What about the court?

We sought justice for long. We filed countless petitions. I went to the court almost everyday to ensure that the accused were sentenced to death, and later, to execute that sentence. As a mother, I had nothing else to live for. Sometimes I had wondered if the law was on the side of the accused. We, the victim’s family, worked hard to prove their guilt, to get them the deserving punishment, and to ensure that the punishment was executed. But I was determined not to give up. I had decided to follow up right to their hanging. We tend to lose our trust in judiciary when you have to strive hard to get justice. People will trust laws only when they are served justice on time.

* How did the government react?

They seldom walked their talk. When Aam Aadmi Party came to power, they promised to install cameras in every street in Delhi. They have been voted to power again after five years. They are yet to act on their promise. Some of the criminals might have been deterred for fear of the cameras.

Then laws are made by our governments. Criminals are getting away. Girls are being attacked cruelly. Why can’t the authorities rewrite the laws. If you ask me what needs change in our country, I would say our laws must change first.

* About your daughter…

You call her Nirbhaya. She was exactly that. She was brave. She had trained herself in karate. She challenged a wrong even as a small child. She would stand up for her friends. She was like a protector for all her friends in school.

She was good in studies. She scored 95 per cent marks in Class 12. She wanted to be a doctor. She had told us that she would help the poor as a doctor. But we did not have enough money to enrol her to an MBBS course. So we got her to join a physiotherapy course in Dehradun. She was returning from Dehradun after the final exam. She had decided to do internship in Delhi.

She was not a regular movie-goer. That day she went with her friend because she had done with all her exams. She was waiting for a bus to go home after the movie when those men…

* How do you remember the final days?

She was in a critical stage when we met her. Her internal organs were damaged. We still believed that she would come back to life. She did not lose courage. Whenever I went to her bed, she would tell me that she was ok and I should not worry. Then her condition deteriorated. She was taken to Singapore. Her chances were dimmer. Then the doctor told us that it was difficult to keep her alive. She died the next morning.

(Asha Devi’s eyes welled up for the only time during the interview. She turned her face to wipe off the tears with her palm.)

She loved the food I made. She liked sweets, milk and curd. Her intestine had to be removed due to the wounds inflicted by them. She died without sipping a drop of water. Can you imagine my grief.

* There were reports that the most brutal was the youngest of the gang, a minor. He has served his three-year sentence.

I do not understand how he was let off with such a light punishment. Did he act like a minor? When it came to punishing him, he was treated like a boy. That is why I want to laws to be rewritten. Cruelty needs the punishment it deserves.

* There are so many people speaking against capital punishment.

They seem to be arguing for the human rights of those sentenced to death. What about the human rights of my dead daughter. So many girls like her are being killed. What about the human rights of the mothers who beg for the punishment of the killers of their children. The human rights activists have no concerns about those things. There are people coming from even Kerala to speak for the rights of the condemned. Surely they stand to gain something. If not, how could they turn a blind eye towards us.

Another group is the advocates who appear for the accused. Pawan Kumar Gupta’s advocate, A P Singh, was seen lamenting in the court that he was not treated fairly. What a farce!

* You have started a trust in memory of Nirbhaya. What are the activities?

We started the Nirbhaya Jyoti Trust in memory of my daughter. We want to offer refuge and legal help to victims of sexual violence. So many people had supported us. We have a duty to give back the support to the needy. We hear a lot about similar cruelty every day. Criminals are behaving as if they were devils. I get calls from so many insulted and attacked women. I have to help them. At present, the trust is not working efficiently. I had been chasing the legal proceedings all this while. The day the process ends, I will start working for the trust.

(The trust aims to offer support, counselling and legal aid to women in distress due to crime or tragedies, according to its website. The trust has a vision of psychological and economic rehabilitation. Terms like morality, culture, law, value, shame and crime were designed to target women, the trust says in its founding message.)

* What made you strong to carry on with this fight?

I come from a village in Uttar Pradesh. I have studied only up to eighth standard. Which mother can sit tight when faced with such a situation? I searched for justice for years. I cried and cried until I found the courage. I learned about all the nitty gritty related to the case. I started this fight for my daughter. Now it is for every girl in the country. All women stand to benefit with the hanging of the convicts. Criminals will think twice before they go to commit a crime.

* You have not kept anything in the house as a memory of your daughter, except her childhood photos.

I will, after the hanging. I had decided to put up a picture of my daughter only after her killers are hanged. That is my way of reminding myself. Now we have only the name board of the trust in her name.

* The accused in a case of raping and burning a veterinarian in Hyderabad were shot dead by the police. What do you think of it?

I was happy. So happy. That is justice. That family did not have to go from court to court like me. They did not have to wait for years for justice. Those father and mother have been served justice.

Nirbhaya’s father

Nirbhaya’s father Badrinath Singh has kept himself aloof from the media. He is quietly attending to his job at the New Delhi airport to support his family. He seldom speaks about his daughter, who was brutalised to death in the capital’s streets seven years ago.

He briefly talked to Manorama about the tragedy that shook his family. “We got a call from the police after that night. They only said that our daughter was in danger. I understood the gravity of the situation only when I reached there,” he said before the conversation broke off for a few minutes.

“She was one of the two girls in my (extended) family. Our only daughter. Elder sister to our two sons. She wanted to study hard and support me in my hardship. We lost that daughter,” Singh summed up his traumatic experience and walked out of the house.