Post date: Mar 11, 2013 4:15:20 AM
One of the main accused in the infamous Delhi gangrape case, Ram Singh, commits suicide while in custody in New Delhi's central Tihar Jail.
NEW DELHI (ANI) - The driver of the bus in which a young woman was gang-raped and fatally injured three months ago hanged himself in New Delhi's Tihar jail on Monday (March 11).
Ram Singh was the main accused of five men and a juvenile put on trial for the attack on the 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist in the Indian capital.The assault triggered nationwide protests and an intense debate about rampant crime against women in India.
Singh, who had been lodged in the Tihar Jail since December last year, committed suicide by hanging himself in Jail No. 3 at around 5.00 am (local time) early in the morning on Monday.
According to local media reports Singh hanged himself with his own clothes.
Besides Singh, his brother Mukesh and three other men are being tried in a fast track court that has been looking into the case.
The sixth accused, who has been declared as a minor, is being tried separately in a special juvenile court.
The 23-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was raped and beaten with an iron bar by five men and a teenager on a moving bus in December. The woman died of internal injuries two weeks later.
All the six accused person were arrested within days of the incident and were being tried in the fast track court.
All the six accused have pleaded not guilty to rape and murder.
Tihar jail is India's highest security prison and officials there are likely to face tough questions about how such a incident could have occurred.
The incident and the subsequent public outrage over it led to the government to draft more stringent anti-rape laws in the country which are expected to be passed in the parliament's current Budget Session.
New Delhi, with a burgeoning population of 16 million, has the unsavoury reputation of being the country's 'rape capital', recording more rapes annually than any other Indian city.
There were 706 rapes reported in 2012, a 23 percent rise from the previous year, according to the Delhi police, while molestation cases rose by 11 percent to 727.