Judge orders first death sentences over multiple rapes in Mumbai

An Indian judge yesterday ordered three men to hang after they were convicted of two gang rapes, the first death sentences to be handed down for multiple sex attacks since the law was toughened last year.

The sentences were announced at a court in Mumbai on the same day that a judge jailed 24 men in the southern state of Kerala over the gang rape of a schoolgirl who was repeatedly sexually assaulted over a 40-day period in 1996.

A series of mass protests over the levels of sexual violence prompted the government to amend the law last year and allow for harsher punishments for rapists, including the death penalty for repeat offenders.

The three who were sentenced yesterday had been found guilty of two attacks in July and August last year at the same abandoned mill compound in Mumbai, including an attack on a photographer that made global headlines.

Mohammed Salim Ansari, 28, Vijay Mohan Jadhav, 19, and Mohammed Kasim Hafeez Shaikh, 21, were convicted last month after a fast-track trial. They were subsequently handed life sentences for one of those assaults, the gang rape of an 18-year-old phone operator.

But they were also convicted this week under a new section of the law for being repeat rape offenders.

"There needs to be zero tolerance for such incidents," Judge Shalini Phansalkar Joshi said as she announced the sentences. "A loud and clear message needs to be sent to society."