Four face hanging for India gang rape and murder

NEW DELHI // Four men face death sentences today for the rape and murder of a university student on a bus in New Delhi.
"Hang them! Hang them!" dozens of protesters shouted outside the court after Judge Yogesh Khanna delivered a guilty verdict on the men, aged between 19 and 28. The judge will hear arguments on sentencing today.
"She has got justice today. We are very happy," said the father of the 23-year-old victim. "We are very confident that all of them will be hanged."
Mr Khanna said the men had tortured the "helpless victim" during the attack on December 16 last year with the "sole intention of causing death", and had violated her body with metal rods and their bare hands.
A fifth attacker, who remains anonymous because he was under 18 at the time, was sentenced last month to three years' detention, the maximum for juveniles. The sixth, Ram Singh, 33, hanged himself in jail in March.
The atrocity galvanised public opinion and forced Indians to confront the scourge of sexual violence, which is prevalent in the country.
It set off waves of protests and the government implemented a series of reforms, including new laws against sexual violence and the creation of a fast-track court for the trial of bus cleaner Akshay Thakur, gym instructor Vinay Sharma, fruit-seller Pawan Gupta and unemployed Mukesh Singh.
Mr Khanna was scathing in his criticism of their "inconsistent" defence. One of the men said he was driving the bus and was not aware of what happened behind him, and the others claimed they were not on the bus at all.
But the prosecution gathered damning DNA and forensic evidence, including bite marks from the victim on the arms of two of the attackers. Evidence also included bloody underwear recovered from one of the men and blood splatter on the bus, even though it had been washed soon after the attack. Bank cards and mobile phones belonging to the victim and a male friend who was with her were also recovered from the men.
The verdict was reached on the basis of the physical evidence and testimony given by the young woman before she died and by the friend who was also assaulted by the six men, said the judge.
The attackers tricked the young woman and her companion into boarding the bus they were driving.
For almost an hour, as the bus circled some of the busiest streets in New Delhi, crossing several police checkpoints, the men beat the male friend and dragged the woman to the back of the bus where they tortured and raped her. The pair were stripped naked and thrown out of the bus bleeding and unconscious, and the bus driver then tried to run them over.
Mr Khanna heard evidence from more than 100 witnesses during the seven-month trial.
Gupta, 19, burst into tears after the verdict was read. The parents of another of the attackers, Mukesh Singh, collapsed at the feet of his lawyer, V?K Anand, and sobbed uncontrollably.
"My client has repeatedly said he was driving the bus. He did not know what was going on inside," Mr Anand said. "This verdict is astonishing. We will appeal it."
A?P Singh, the lawyer for Thakur and Sharma, said the men had been "framed simply to please the public".
"This is not a fair trial. There was too much pressure from the government and other sources to reach this verdict," he said.
The victim's parents were also in court yesterday. Her mother said she hoped the men would be hanged for their crimes.
"If they are not hanged, it will be a shame for everyone," she said before bursting into tears. "When I saw her in the hospital later, she said 'Mummy, they beat me up very brutally'."
The victim underwent five operations after the attack and was flown to Singapore for further treatment on December 27. She died two days later.
Outside the courtroom yesterday, five men wearing black hoods mimicked death by hanging.
"Every day it is the same thing, stares, gropes, petty remarks by men," said Jyotsna Singh, 19, a college student. "We don't know when that will stop but hopefully this case can send out a strong message about the consequences men can face if they disrespect women."
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