{{Four men were found guilty Tuesday of raping and murdering a medical student on a Delhi bus last December – a crime that shocked the country, sparked mass protests and led to a reform of India’s rape laws.}}
Arguments on sentencing are due to begin on Wednesday and all four could be hanged for the murder conviction, said VK Anand, the defence lawyer for one of the accused.
Prosecutors had alleged that bus cleaner Akshay Kumar Singh, gym instructor Vinay Sharma, fruit-seller Pawan Gupta, and unemployed Mukesh Singh lured the woman and a male friend onto the bus on the night of December 16 as the pair returned home from watching a movie at a shopping mall in south Delhi.
They then beat up and robbed the male friend before taking turns in raping the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and tortured her with a metal bar as the bus drives around the capital.
After more than an hour, the bloodied young couple were dumped by a main road leading to the international airport, narrowly avoiding death when the gang tried to reverse over them with the vehicle.
The male friend later recovered, but the woman’s internal injuries were so severe that she died in a Singapore hospital two weeks after the attack.
A total of six suspects were arrested following a police investigation. Ram Singh, the alleged driver of the bus and one of the main accused, was later found dead in his cell after an apparent suicide, though his family and lawyer allege he was murdered.
Another suspect, a teenager, was trialled as a juvenile and on August 31 was found guilty of rape and murder and sentenced to three years in a correctional facility – the maximum possible sentence for the teenager under Indian law.
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