India hangs four over 2012 Delhi bus gang-rape

India executed four men on Friday for the gang-rape and murder of a woman on a Delhi bus in 2012 that sparked huge nationwide protests and international revulsion.

The four were hanged before dawn at Tihar Jail in the Indian capital, the head of the prison, Sandeep Goel, told AFP, in India's first execution since 2015.

"All four convicts (were) hanged at 5:30 am," Goel said.

The brutal attack on Jyoti Singh sparked weeks of demonstrations and shone a spotlight on the alarming rates of sexual violence and the plight of women in India where around 95 rapes are reported daily.

The execution sparked small celebrations outside the prison early on Friday.

"We are satisfied that finally my daughter got justice after seven years," the victim's mother, Asha Devi, told reporters outside the jail. "The beasts have been hanged."

Singh, 23, was returning home from the cinema with a male friend on the evening of December 16, 2012 when they boarded a Delhi bus, thinking it would take them home.

Five men and a 17-year-old boy had other, darker ideas.

They knocked the friend unconscious and dragged Singh to the back of the bus and raped and tortured her with a metal rod.

The physiotherapy student and the friend were then dumped on the road. Singh died 13 days later in a Singapore hospital from massive internal injuries.

Nearly 34,000 rapes were reported in India in 2018, according to official data. This is considered the tip of the iceberg, with many more victims too scared to come forward.

Singh, nicknamed "Nirbhaya" ("fearless"), survived long enough to identify her attackers and all six were arrested. Four were convicted in 2013.

A fifth, the suspected ringleader, was found dead in jail in a suspected suicide, while the 17-year-old spent three years in a juvenile detention center.

Almost 150,000 rape cases are awaiting trial in India's dysfunctional criminal justice system.

SS