India’s top court upholds sentences in 2012 gang-rape

India’s top court on Monday upheld death sentences for three men convicted over the notorious 2012 gang-rape and murder of a woman that sparked national protests and soul-searching.

Jyoti Singh, a physiotherapy student, was raped and left for dead by a gang of five men and a teenager on a bus in the Indian capital New Delhi in December 2012.

The 23-year-old woman, on course to be the first professional in the family, was coming home from the cinema with a male friend.

The six-strong gang beat the man unconscious before raping and torturing Singh with an iron bar as the private bus drove loops through the Indian capital.

She was dumped on the streets after 45 minutes with horrific internal injuries, and died 13 days later in a Singapore hospital.

The brutality of the attack, and her determination to survive long enough to identify her attackers to police, triggered angry demonstrations by tens of thousands of people in Delhi and nationwide.

The case also put the treatment of women in the world’s largest democracy in the global spotlight and led to heavier sentences for sex crimes.

Four of the men were convicted in September 2013 for murder, gang-rape, theft, conspiracy and “unnatural acts” after a seven-month trial in a fast-track court.

A fifth man, the suspected ringleader, was found dead in jail in a suspected suicide.

The victim’s parents on Monday welcomed the ruling, with her mother Asha Singh saying it was “very happy news.”