INDIA: THREE SENTENCED TO DEATH IN MUMBAI RAPE CASE
April 4, 2015: An Indian court has sentenced three men to death for the rape of a photojournalist inside an abandoned textile mill in the financial hub of Mumbai last year.
A fourth defendant was sentenced to life in prison, prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told the Reuters news agency on Friday (April 4).
He said he had asked for the death sentence under a strict anti-rape law introduced following public outrage over a fatal gang-rape in New Delhi in 2012.
"This is the first case in India in which the death penalty has been given to convicts while the victim is alive," Nikam said.
The three men were found guilty last month of raping a call-centre operator at the same abandoned mill in July 2013, months before the attack on the photojournalist.
Nikam described the three as habitual offenders.
Judge Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi said the offense was diabolical in nature and the punishment would send a strong message to the society. (Sources: dailymail.co.uk, 04/04/2015)
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