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Delhi bus rape: Indian court issues death warrants

| Updated: January 08, 2020 19:53:44


Delhi bus rape: Indian court issues death warrants

An Indian court has set an execution date for four men convicted of the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a student in Delhi.

Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh were sentenced to death by a fast-track court in 2013.

Their 23-year-old victim died from her injuries 13 days after she was raped and assaulted on a moving bus.

Lawyers for the men, who are due to be hanged on January 22, plan to launch last-ditch legal challenges.

This means the men cannot be executed until the Supreme Court rejects their final challenge, and the Indian president also rejects their mercy petitions, reports BBC.

The incident - which happened on the night of December 16 ,2012 - sparked massive protests, global outrage and led to India passing new anti-rape laws.

Six men were arrested for the attack. One suspect, Ram Singh, was found dead in jail in March 2013, having apparently taken his own life.

Another, who was aged 17 at the time, was released in 2015 after serving three years in a reform facility - the maximum term possible for a juvenile in India.

India rarely carries out death sentences - only four other people have been executed since 2004. The last man to be executed was Yakub Memon, who was convicted of financing the deadly 1993 Mumbai bombings. He was hanged in 2015.

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