L
LequteMan
Guest
According to Reuters, four men were sentenced to death on Friday for raping and murdering a woman in New Delhi last December.
There has been a public clamor for the men to be hanged and cheers went up from a crowd inside and outside the Delhi courthouse when lawyers rushed out to announce the sentence.
The victim was raped for an hour and tortured with an iron rod on a moving bus before being thrown out with her male friend who was brutally beaten.
"These are the times when gruesome crimes against women have become rampant, and courts cannot turn a blind eye to the need to send a strong deterrent message to the perpetrators of such crimes," Judge Yogesh Khanna said in a ruling that capped one of the most notorious criminal trials in modern Indian history.
"The increasing trend of crimes against women can be arrested only once the society realizes that there will be no tolerance (of) any form of deviance against women," said Khanna.
He ordered the men to "be hanged by neck till they are dead".
In a symbolic gesture, he broke the nib of the pen so that it could not be used to sign another death order, court officials said.
Lawyers for all four men said they would appeal, which means their execution could still be years away.
The case will go to the High Court and then Supreme Court. If they confirm the sentences, the final decision will lie with the president, who has the power to grant clemency
