Indian court sentences three to death for fatal gang-rape
New laws allow for the death penalty in cases where a rape victim dies from the attack or is left in a vegetative state
An Indian court on Wednesday sentenced three men to death for abducting and raping a 19-year-old woman whose mutilated body was found days later, reports said.
The court in New Delhi said the three men, all aged in their 20s, should receive the harshest sentence for the 2012 attack because their crimes fell into the “rarest of rare” category under Indian law.
“Death to all three,” presiding judge Virender Bhat was quoted by the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency as saying.
The father of the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, welcomed the judgment, saying he has been so consumed with fighting for justice for his daughter that he has been unable to hold down a job.
“I fought a lone battle for two years, and it has paid off,” the father, 45, who was in court to hear the sentences, said.
The government toughened laws on sexual violence against women in March last year, following outrage at the fatal gang-rape of a student on a Delhi bus in December 2012.