Four men have been given the death sentence for the fatal gang-rape of a young medical student on a moving Delhi bus, an attack that shocked India and ignited weeks of protests demanding better safety for women and swift justice for the 23-year-old who was killed.
 

One of the men, Vinay Sharma, broke down in tears as the sentence was announced.  Along with Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Sing, he was sentenced to death by hanging at a fast-track court in Delhi today. 

Judge Yogesh Khanna said the student was "tortured till the very end" and that the case fell into the "rarest of rare category", which justified capital punishment.

The student's parents have repeatedly demanded the death sentence for those who killed their daughter. "They did not spare her.  Why should they be shown any mercy?" her father said after the men were convicted on Wednesday. " 

Defence lawyer AP Singh dramatically wiped tears away as he told reporters that the verdict has been influenced by public and political pressure.

The woman and her male friend were lured onto a bus on December 16 after they left a mall where they had watched a film.

As the bus drove through South Delhi, passing through three police check points, the men hit the student's friend with iron rods before using them to violate her. 45 minutes later, the couple was thrown naked and semi-conscious on the road.

The young woman died in hospital in Singapore two weeks after the attack.

For days, thousands of demonstrators marched in different cities, forcing the government to introduce tougher laws to punish sexual offences; special courts to try rape cases quickly were also sanctioned.

Of the six men who were arrested, the alleged ring leader was found hanging in his prison cell in March. Another, who was 17 at the time of the attack, was convicted by a juvenile court last month and sentenced to three years in a reform centre. (NDTV)