The verdict awarding three years imprisonment to the juvenile accused was pronounced behind closed doors at the Juvenile Justice Board here, which directed the people present inside including the accused, prosecution and defence counsel and the victim’s family members not to disclose the contents of the 60-page judgement.
According to the police, apart from the offences of murder and gangrape, the board also convicted the juvenile under sections 342 (wrongful confinement), 364, 365, 366, 367 (kidnapping or abducting for murder, to defile a woman, etc) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The board also held him guilty for offences under sections 377 (unnatural offences), 395 (dacoity), 412 (dishonestly receiving stolen property knowing that it was obtained by dacoity), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC, the police said.
While acquitting the juvenile of attempting to murder the victim’s male friend, the board also acquitted him of the offences under sections 396 (murder during dacoity) and 397 (robbery or dacoity with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt) of the IPC, the sources said.
According to the police, the 18-year-old youth, who was minor at the time of the incident, was the “most brutal” of all the six persons who gangraped a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus in the national capital on December 16 2012.
The accused juvenile worked as a bus cleaner and had called out to the woman and her male friend, who were waiting for public transport, to take a ride on the bus till their destination.
According to investigators, the minor had called out to the woman as “sister” while offering her a ride on the bus.