'Give harshest punishment if my son is guilty of gang rape'

The father of one of the accused arrested in the Delhi gang-rape case yesterday said if his juvenile son was guilty he should be given the harshest of punishment.

"If my son has done it, the harshest of punishment should be given to him, otherwise he should be let off," Hari Ram Sharma, whose undergraduate son Vinay has been arrested, told a TV channel.

While Sharma claimed that Vinay, pursuing B.Com from Delhi University, was a juvenile and would turn 18 in January 2013, Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar said that none of the four "arrested accused was a minor".

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Sharma said on returning home Sunday - the day when the rape took place in a moving bus - Pawan Gupta, another accused under custody, came to their home and took Vinay along.

"Vinay returned at 10 pm.and went to bed. Police came to our house yesterday (Monday) and took him away for questioning," said Sharma.

"My son was not very close to them (the other accused), they never came to our home," he added. Vinay lived in Ravidas Camp slums of RK Puram area in south Delhi and the other accused under arrest were his neighbours.