There is no bigger pain than that of losing your child.
And, as time passes by, people may think that parents, who lost their child, have healed. But, the truth is no matter how much time has gone by their arms will still ache, their soul will still grieve and their heart would still be broken.
And, one such grieving parent is Asha Devi. It just took one horrible night of 16th December 2012, that turned a faceless, voiceless mother, Asha Devi into Nirbhaya’s mother – The mother of the fearless one!
After the court set a new date for execution of the death row convicts, Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Dev remembered the fateful night of December 2012 in an interview with India Today on Thursday:
“Nirbhaya left from home and told me she will be back in 2-3 hours. It was around 8 pm that we could not reach her. We tried calling but the phone was disconnected. My son and I took turns visiting the bus stand but saw no sign of her.”
“At 10 pm, her father came home and started searching for her. We were still waiting outside when around 11 pm, we received a call from Safdurjung Hospital. The hospital told my husband that our daughter was there and had suffered some injuries,”
When Nirbhaya saw her mother in the hospital, the brave daughter couldn’t control herself and started crying.
But what Asha Devi shared next would break your heart. While sharing the events of the night as Nirbhaya was being wheeled into an operating room, Asha Devi mentioned:
“At the time, I was not aware of the magnitude of the crime, but we were told that six men had done something to her,”
“Her lips were split in two, the skin on her head was ripped open. Her body was full of cuts and bruises, blood was oozing out of cuts, and even the flesh was exposed in some places… It seemed as if she had been rescued from a jungle”
“The doctor said he was unable to understand what to do, what to fix and what to mend,”
A few days later, when Nirbhaya regained consciousness, the first thing that she asked for was water. But, she was in such a miserable condition that she couldn’t even drink it. Recalling her daughter’s trauma, Asha Devi tearfully shared:
“Till date, I live in regret that my daughter was alive for 10-12 days but could not even get a drop of water from this world.”
“I live with this pain even today”
As per the recent Delhi court orders, the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case “will be hanged by the neck until they are dead on March 20 at 5.30 am”. This fresh date was issued after the court was informed by the Delhi government that the convicts have exhausted all their legal remedies.
The Bottom Line:
Finally, the 7-year long legal battle to seek justice for her daughter came to an end as the culprits of Nirbhaya were hanged today at Tihar Jail. Asha Devi’s battle may be over but her war on rape crime has just started. As she has vowed to continue fighting for rape victims across the country, we stand tall with this brave soul!
