Many more sleepless nights await us but we will fight for justice till we die: Nirbhaya's parents on juvenile's release

As the grieving parents of the brave girl Nirbhaya still await justice three years after they lost their daughter in a horrifying gangrape incident, it’s almost shameful that the juvenile convict is not only all set to walk free by December 20, but will be given a one-time Rs 10,000 financial grant and a sewing machine to open a tailoring shop.

It’s almost like he is being rewarded for the heinous crime he was a part of. A girl, for whom the nation stood up questioning the law and order (such was the empathy), imagine the pain it would be for her parents to see the most brutal of the six offenders go scotfree because he was a minor.

“It has been three years since the night I lost my daughter. It shook the nation, brought down people on the streets and we felt, we won’t get our daughter back but at least we can give her justice. At least we can sleep peacefully. But, nothing changed. On my daughter’s 3^rd death anniversary, the criminal is going scot-free. There are many more sleepless nights that await us,” said the braveheart’s mother, Asha Devi, her voice almost choking.

“Our system has not taken any learnings from the worst incident the country has witnessed ever,” she added.

Meanwhile, a disappointed father of Nirbhaya blames this very injustice as reason for people not wanting to bear a girl child. “What should I feel? I did a mistake by having a girl child?” he said, questioning the willingness to take action in several other crime incidents that are not even highlighted. “It’s for the world to see what happened to our daughter. If a case of this magnitude that is under immense public scrutiny has seen one of the perpetrators being released, I fret to think about the several other cases that happen in our country.”

Today, as the parents of the gangrape victim, in collaboration with women's and citizens groups, will mark the day as Nirbhaya Chetna Divas at Jantar Mantar, inside their hearts they are still determined to get justice for their beloved daughter, even as they see Delhi government's department of Women and Child Development (WCD) planning a better life for the juvenile.

"My daughter's name was Jyoti Singh and I am not ashamed to name her. Those who commit heinous crimes like rape, their heads should hang in shame, not the victims or their families. You should take her name too," she said at 'Nirbhaya Chetna Diwas'.

"On the third death anniversary of our daughter, we are seeing the release of the juvenile convict. Where is justice in that? I do not know whether he is 16 or 18. I only know that he has committed a brutal crime and there should be no age limit for punishment," Asha said, his husband adding that he is nothing else but a threat to society.

"I will take this fight with me even when I die, but I'll make sure the killers of my daughters get the fate they deserve," Asha Devi told Business Insider.

As Celebrities like Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, and various women's groups converged at Jantar Mantar to light candles and pay homage to the girl, support also poured in by Twitteratis in the form of #LightACandle that was trending throughout the day.

From “Be the change you want to see” to “there shouldn’t be another Nirbhaya, we need to stand up and be counted”, Twitter was one with the supporters on the ground at Jantar Mantar:

The victim who was a paramedical student, on December 16, 2012, was brutally assaulted by six persons, including the juvenile, in a moving bus in south Delhi. She had later succumbed to her injuries in a Singapore hospital plunging the country into grief.

(Image credit: PTI)