News
#Nirbhaya: Convict in Indian Gang Rape, Murder Case is Released
Published
7 years agoon

One of six men convicted of taking part in the savage 2012 gang rape of an Indian physiotherapy student on a moving Delhi bus was released Sunday after completing his full three-year sentence behind bars, an Indian government official said.
He had participated in the most heinous of acts, but because he was just shy of his 18th birthday on the night of the rape, he served only three years in custody, a sentence that many felt amounted to a severe miscarriage of justice.
The crime shook the country, stirred global outrage and brought focus on India’s attitudes and treatment of women. The victim died of her injuries 13 days after the brutal attack.
“He has been moved to an undisclosed location, where he will be observed. But technically, he is no longer in custody,” Delhi state government spokesman Nagendar Sharma told CNN on Sunday. The law states that the under-18 rapist cannot be named.
Under India’s juvenile justice laws, a minor’s maximum punishment is three years at a reform facility. The Indian government had opposed his release, but the New Delhi High Court on Friday refused to grant a petition for prolonged custody, government lawyer Anil Soni said.
‘Crime has won. We have lost’
In 2013, when the men were convicted, Indians had demanded “fansi,” death by hanging.
But in the cool breeze of this December day, the outrage that erupted from this case seemed a memory. The only expression of disappointment came from the victim’s parents and the lawyers who had fought to delay the release.
The victim’s mother, Asha Singh, had promised her daughter she would fight for her. But on Friday, she said she had failed.
“Crime has won. We have lost,” Singh said. “Our efforts for three years have failed.”
“If they understood my daughter’s pain, if they understood my pain,” she continued, “the culprit would not be free.”
“He deserves the same punishment as the four who’ve been given the death penalty. It should set a historic example in society that if you treat women and girls this way, no one will be spared.”
Of the other five rapists, one died in prison and the other four received death sentences.
Good intentions
India’s juvenile justice laws were drafted with the best of intentions and aimed at reform for minors.
In the aftermath of the gang rape, a bill introduced in Parliament sought to amend the law to make exceptions to the three-year sentence limit in cases of heinous crimes. But that bill was tabled in the upper house.
Indian law enforcement and lawmakers had asked for continued custody of the minor, who has been held at an institution for juvenile reform. But the high court could not find legal ground on which to issue a stay.
“The court is no doubt concerned by what has happened and the seriousness of the offense, but the court is also helpless because they have to stay within the confines of the act and the rules and the law,” said Soni, the government lawyer.
A three-year sentence seemed vastly disproportionate given the nature of the rape. The crime was unimaginably brutal. On the night of December 16, 2012, the victim and a male friend boarded a bus to make their way home from a south Delhi movie theater, not far from the high court complex. They were attacked by the six men and left on the side of the road to die.
The woman was found with her intestines pulled out of her body. She was dubbed “Nirbhaya,” one without fear, as she struggled for survival, first in Delhi and then in a hospital in Singapore. She died of her injuries 13 days later.
On Wednesday, people gathered at a third anniversary commemoration in Delhi and listened to Asha Singh name her daughter publicly for the first time — Jyoti Singh. By law, rape victims are not ever named publicly in India.
“Why should I hide her name? Why should I be ashamed of it?” her mother said. “Those who committed that heinous crime on her should feel ashamed. The makers of this administrative system should feel ashamed.”
‘Public memory is fickle’
The crime galvanized Indians to take to the streets. They demanded an end to violence against women and as well as legal and societal changes. But though the Nirbhaya case is still widely discussed, the fervor has calmed and few changes have materialized.
“Public memory is fickle,” said Meenakshi Bhanja, 35, a Delhi-based journalist who was outside the Delhi court Friday.
“Has anything changed in India? I am sorry to say, no,” she said. “Outrage over an incident doesn’t change the DNA of the society.”
That was also the sentiment of three young women, all law students who are interning at the high court.
“Our legal system should be strong enough to make us all feel safe,” said Dolly Kaushik, 22. “Nothing has changed in India.”
Her friend Kritika Dua, 22, said India has the laws in the books, but she blamed the police and the judiciary for failing to implement them. Kaushik blamed all of Indian society.
“Even we are at fault,” she said. “The mindset has to change. How can anyone say that the answer to the problem is that girls should not go out?”
She was referring to Indian politicians who, in the aftermath of Jyoti Singh’s rape, suggested that she had perhaps asked for it by going out at night.
“In our country, fathers rape their daughters,” Kaushik said. “Most rape cases happen in the house.”
Monika Khatri, another 22-year-old law student, who wants to become a judge, said a young man who rapes a woman so violently that she dies from her injuries should serve many years behind bars, no matter his age. Justice, she said, had eluded Nirbhaya.
Entrepreneur, contributor, writer, and editor of Sostre News. With a powerful new bi-lingual speaking generation by his side, Sostre News is becoming the preferred site for the latest in Politics, Entertainment, Sports, Culture, Tech, Breaking and World News.

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Three Disney World Employees Among 17 Arrested in Florida Child Sex Sting
Three Disney World employees were among the 17 people arrested in a child sex sting operation in Florida, law enforcement officials announced on Wednesday.
Published
2 years agoon
August 4, 2021
Three Disney World employees were among the 17 people arrested in a child sex sting operation in Florida, law enforcement officials announced on Wednesday.
In the operation, dubbed “Operation Child Protector,” undercover officers posed as 13- and 14-year-old children on social media and online dating apps between July 27 and Aug. 1.
The undercovers made contact with each of the suspects before proposing they meet at a location in Polk County, where they were busted.
In total, the arrests led to 49 felony and two misdemeanor charges. Those arrested were aged 26 to 47. All were from Central Florida except for one 33-year-old man from California.
“What you see on this board … are deviants. Incredible deviants,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference on Tuesday, motioning to photos of the alleged pervs. “They travel from as far away as Clewiston, Florida. One even came from Los Angeles.”
“Much to their chagrin, instead of meeting with young children, they were met by law enforcement officers who were online undercover posing as children.”
Kenneth Javier Aquino, 26, a lifeguard at Animal Kingdom Lodge at Disney World, was arrested while still wearing his Disney polo shirt and swimsuit, according to the sheriff’s office.
Aquino engaged in an online conversation on social media with an officer, posing as a 13-year-old girl, authorities said. He then asked the “girl” to send photos, and sent her an explicit video of himself, police said.
Aquino told officers he is a Navy veteran and has a pregnant girlfriend.
Jonathan McGrew, a 34-year-old custodian at Disney World, was nabbed by an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl.
McGrew allegedly told the “girl” that he wanted her to come over and have sex with him and his girlfriend, 29-year-old Savannah Lawrence, who also works as a custodian at tourist mecca.
McGrew sent her explicit videos of him and Lawrence performing sexual acts on each other, authorities said.
A rep for Disney World didn’t immediately return a message.
News
China Reports First Human Death from Monkey B Virus
China has reported the first human infection and death in the country caused by a rare infectious disease found in primates known as the Monkey B virus.
The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said a 53-year-old veterinary surgeon who worked in a research institute specializing in nonhuman primate breeding in Beijing dissected two monkeys in March and became ill about a month later.
Published
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July 19, 2021
China has reported the first human infection and death in the country caused by a rare infectious disease found in primates known as the Monkey B virus.
The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said a 53-year-old veterinary surgeon who worked in a research institute specializing in nonhuman primate breeding in Beijing dissected two monkeys in March and became ill about a month later.
He began experiencing nausea, vomiting, fever and neurological issues, and died in May.
Blood and saliva samples were tested and researchers in April found evidence of the Monkey B virus, also known as the herpes B virus.
Researchers said a male doctor and female nurse who were in close contact with the victim tested negative for the virus.
The Monkey B virus is prevalent among macaque monkeys but infection among humans is extremely rare. Since the virus was identified in 1932, just 50 cases have been reported, with the majority of those in North America. Untreated B virus infections in humans are serious, however, with a fatality rate of about 80 percent.
Symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, and progress to more serious complications such as swelling of the brain and spinal cord.
Laboratory workers and veterinarians in close contact with the animals are most at risk as people typically get infected with the virus if they are bitten or scratched by an infected macaque, or have contact with the monkey’s eyes, nose or mouth.
But the virus is unlikely to mutate in a way that poses a problem to the general population. Just one case of human-to-human transmission of the virus has ever been documented.
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U.S. Remembers 9/11 Terrorist Attacks as The Pandemic Changes Tribute Traditions
Americans are commemorating 9/11 with tributes that have been altered by coronavirus precautions and woven into the presidential campaign, drawing both President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden to pay respects at the same memorial without crossing paths.
Published
3 years agoon
September 11, 2020
Americans are commemorating 9/11 with tributes that have been altered by coronavirus precautions and woven into the presidential campaign, drawing both President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden to pay respects at the same memorial without crossing paths.
In New York, a dispute over coronavirus-safety precautions is leading to split-screen remembrances Friday, one at the Sept. 11 memorial plaza at the World Trade Center and another on a nearby corner. The Pentagon’s observance will be so restricted that not even victims’ families can attend, though small groups can visit the memorial there later in the day.
Trump and Biden are both headed — at different times — to the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Trump is speaking at the morning ceremony, the White House said. Biden plans to pay respects there in the afternoon after attending the observance at the 9/11 memorial in New York.
Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence is also due at ground zero — and then at the alternate ceremony a few blocks away.
In short, the anniversary of 9/11 is a complicated occasion in a maelstrom of a year, as the U.S. grapples with a health crisis, searches its soul over racial injustice and prepares to choose a leader to chart a path forward.
Still, 9/11 families say it’s important for the nation to pause and remember the hijacked-plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people at the trade center, at the Pentagon and near Shanksville on Sept. 11, 2001, shaping American policy, perceptions of safety and daily life in places from airports to office buildings.
“I know that the heart of America beats on 9/11 and, of course, thinks about that tragic day. I don’t think that people forget,” says Anthoula Katsimatides, who lost her brother John and is now on the board of the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum.
Friday will mark Trump’s second time observing the 9/11 anniversary at the Flight 93 memorial, where he made remarks in 2018. Biden spoke at the memorial’s dedication in 2011, when he was vice president.
The ground zero ceremony in New York has a longstanding custom of not allowing politicians to speak, though they can attend. Biden did so as vice president in 2010, and Trump as a candidate in 2016.
Though the candidates will be focused on the commemorations, the political significance of their focus on Shanksville is hard to ignore: Pennsylvania is a must-win state for both. Trump won it by less than a percentage point in 2016.
Around the country, some communities have canceled 9/11 commemorations because of the pandemic, while others are going ahead, sometimes with modifications.
The New York memorial is changing one of its ceremony’s central traditions: having relatives read the names of the dead, often adding poignant tributes.
Thousands of family members are still invited. But they’ll hear a recording of the names from speakers spread around the vast plaza, a plan that memorial leaders felt would avoid close contact at a stage but still allow families to remember their loved ones at the place where they died.
But some victims’ relatives felt the change robbed the observance of its emotional impact. A different 9/11-related group, the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, set up its own, simultaneous ceremony a few blocks away, saying there’s no reason that people can’t recite names while keeping a safe distance.
The two organizations also tussled over the Tribute in Light, a pair of powerful beams that shine into the night sky near the trade center and evoke its fallen twin towers. The 9/11 memorial initially canceled the display, citing virus-safety concerns for the installation crew. After the Tunnel to Towers Foundation vowed to put up the lights instead, the memorial changed course with help from its chairman, former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Tunnel to Towers, meanwhile, arranged to display single beams for the first time at the Shanksville memorial and the Pentagon.
Over the years, the anniversary also has become a day for volunteering. Because of the pandemic, the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance organization is encouraging people this year to make donations or take other actions that can be accomplished at home.
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