Watch on juvenile rapist

TT, New Delhi, Dec. 11: The Union home ministry has asked Delhi police to form a special team to keep a watch on the December 2012 gang-rape juvenile convict, due to be released next week.

The police have also been told to help the youth, dubbed the "most brutal" in the paramedic's rape and murder, "integrate into the mainstream" and ensure his safety. His three-year-term in a juvenile home ends on December 15.

Sources said senior officers had been asked to get in touch with the Juvenile Justice Board to chalk out a rehabilitation plan after women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi wrote to law minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda.

Delhi High Court today issued a notice to the Centre on a plea by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy that the youth, now 20, should not be freed till it is "demonstrably assured" that he is reformed. The victim's family had demanded that the boy be tried as an adult and be given the death penalty like his four fellow-convicts.

Juvenile law expert Anant Kumar Asthana said if the board was not satisfied with the boy's reformation, it could hold him back for some more months or send him to an NGO.