'I am unable to shake off the guilt'

He was the sole eyewitness to the barbaric gang rape of a young woman on December 16 last year A year after the heinous incident that outraged the entire nation the womanrsquos friend Avanindra Pandey said he is still plagued by guilt and shock and will never be the same again for years Remembrance Students and activists hold placards and candles during a memorial in Ahmedabad ahead of the oneyear anniversary of the gangrape and murder of the 23yearold in Delhi PicAFP Pandey 29 who had boarded the private bus from south Delhirsquos Munirka bus stop along with the 23yearold trainee physiotherapist on that fateful night said the only satisfaction he has was that four of the accused have been sentenced to death But Pandey has one more demand the accused minor should be given a harsher punishment ldquoI often ask myself if I am to blame for this Why did I go to that mall Why did I board that bus I was not able to even speak properly for two weeks afterwardsrdquo said Pandey a software engineer ldquoI survived that night and am alive to tell the talerdquo Pandey saidHis friend died 13 days after the brutal attack Recalling the 84 minutes of horror he had spent in the moving bus as the rapists including a minor tortured and brutalised his friend Pandey recounting the incident says ldquoAfter watching the movie we tried to hire an auto and go to her home in Dwarka in southwest Delhi but the drivers refused to go Then we asked one of them to take us to the Munirka bus stop We reached the bus stop where we spotted the private bus that was already standing there A boy one of the six accused was calling us to get on boardrdquo He said he felt that something was wrong when they sat down in the bus ldquoI had an intuition that something was wrong The five men behaved as if they were the passengers A boy came to us and asked money for tickets They then locked the doors of the bus and switched off the lightsrdquo he recounts adding ldquoThe three men then came towards us and one of them punched me on the face A scuffle broke out between us They snatched our phones and beat us with rodsrdquo Pandey further states ldquoThey dragged me away so that they could attack her I tried to scream and seek help from outside I also tried to break the window pane but couldnrsquot as I was semiconsciousrdquo He said after raping his friend the attackers threw both of them out of the bus without any clothes ldquoI tried to get up and wave at the moving traffic Some cars stopped saw us and left without helping A highway patrol van spotted us and called police and we were taken to the hospitalrdquo Pandey added The young man said he was deeply shocked to see how people kept staring at him at the Safdarjung Hospital but no one even gave him clothes The youth said he was satisfied that one of the six accused Ram Singh met his end by hanging himself in Tihar Jail around three months after the incident while four others have been given the death penalty ldquoThe juvenile should also be given a harsh punishment because he will easily get freedom from reformatory home though he was the most brutalrdquo Pandey added ldquoI am yet to recover from that night I am still in shock I am unable to shake away the guilt I donrsquot know it will take years for me to be the same again I am scared for liferdquo Verdict on death for rapists likely in January The Delhi High Court verdict in the December 16 gang rape case confirming the death sentence of the four accused is likely to be delivered in January lawyers said The high court has been hearing appeals of the four accused and arguments on the death sentence on a daily basis in the sensational case of the 23yearold who was brutally raped in 2012 Sharing their anguish about the delay in the verdict the parents of the victim said ldquoWe want the culprits to be hanged as soon as possiblerdquo Lessons learnt Following the incident the Delhi police have improved gtgt Increasing man power Now the Vasant Vihar police station has 150 staff including 25 women gtgtu00a0The police station has two emergency response vehicles gtgtu00a0A separate room for the interrogation of women accused hasbeen set up the first one in Delhi while one more lock up has been added 17 The number of rapes reported at the police station this yearu00a0