She is known to the world only as India’s Daughter following her sickening gang rape and murder. But today, with permission of her devastated father, we can reveal her name: Jyoti Singh Pandey. Brave dad Badri, 53, told The Sunday People: “We want the world to know her real name.
“My daughter didn’t do anything wrong, she died while protecting herself. “I am proud of her. Revealing her name will give courage to other women who have survived these attacks. They will find strength from my daughter.”
We interviewed Badri and his family in his ancestral village of Billia in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. They have retreated there to grieve away from their Delhi home – a place that will constantly remind them of the barbaric sexual attack Jyoti, 23, was subjected to when she and a male friend were lured on to a bus.
His wife Asha, 46, was too shell-shocked to talk to us.
Badri said: “At first I wanted to see the men responsible face to face but I don’t want to any more. I just want to hear that the courts have punished them and they will be hanged.
“Death for all six of them. These men are beasts. They should be made an example of and that society will not allow such things to happen.”
Recalling the day he found out about his only daughter’s ordeal, Badri said he had just returned home after 10:30pm on December 16 from his shift at Delhi airport where he works as a loader. His wife was worried after Jyoti, a medical school graduate, had not returned home from the cinema.