New Delhi Gang Rape Accused Ram Singh Dies in Prison
News Limited Network, March 11, 2013
Indian police take the men accused of the gang rape and murder of a medical student to the Saket District Court in New Delhi on January 7. Picture: AFP/ Prakash Singh
THE accused ringleader of the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi last December has committed suicide, a jail official confirmed, with media reports saying he hanged himself.
"Yes, he is dead," said the official in the control room of New Delhi's Tihar Jail when asked about Ram Singh, the man accused of leading the gang-rape, AFP reports.
The gang rape ignited street protests and a round of soul-searching about women in India.
Ram Singh, 35, one of the six accused, was the driver of the bus in which the victim, a 23-year-old medical student was beaten and gang-raped.
The victim died from her injuries thirteen days later while undergoing emergency treatment in a Singapore hospital.
Singh, along with four other men on trial with him on rape, murder and abduction charges, had been under a suicide watch, a prison official said.
If convicted, the men could face the death penalty. The sixth accused is being tried and jailed separately because he is a juvenile.
Singh's lawyer, A. P. Singh, confirmed his client's death, saying he died at 5.30am local time.
He alleged that police maleficence led to his client's death.
"What do you mean killed himself? He has been killed in prison,'' Singh said.
Lawyers for the men have previously accused police of beating confessions out of their clients.
Indian jails have a reputation for overcrowding, poor management and brutal treatment of inmates.
Singh, whose brother is one of the accused, was the regular driver of the white private bus alleged to have been used for the crime, which was normally used to ferry schoolchildren.
Police say Singh and the others had a meal together and had been drinking heavily before deciding to take the bus out for a night-time joyride.
The group lured the woman and her male companion onto the bus in New Delhi after the young couple had spent the evening at the cinema and were trying to go home.
They then took it in turns to rape the woman and violate her with an iron bar as well as bash her partner before throwing the couple naked from the moving vehicle at the end of a 40-minute ordeal.
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