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 5:30am,” he said. The execution sparked small celebrations outside the prison early on Friday.
What was the rape case? Nirbhaya 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.