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NEW DELHI, May 5 (Xinhua) -- India's Supreme Court Friday confirmed the death sentence given to four men convicted of the brutal and fatal gangrape of a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012.
The case has triggered nationwide protests and led to stringent anti-rape laws.
The four men - Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh - were found guilty in the case by a special court in September 2013. The death sentence of the four men was upheld by the Delhi High Court in March 2014, following which they had appealed in the Supreme Court.
Three years on, confirming the death penalty of the four men, a three-judge bench of the apex court said: "Taking note of the serious injuries, the severe nature of offense committed by the convicts, we are upholding the sentence."
Lauding the judgment, the father of the victim, who came to be known as "Nirbhaya" (braveheart) in India, said: "These men should be hanged. There is no crime more barbaric than this. I'm certain about that. The Supreme Court has given justice to my daughter and we are happy."
On December 16, 2012, the medical student was attacked and then gangraped on a moving bus by six men while she was returning home after watching a film. The male friend she was with was also beaten up.
After the gangrape, the woman was brutalized with an iron rod. She died in a Singapore hospital 13 days later.
The fifth adult suspect in the case, Ram Singh, the driver of the bus, was found dead in his prison cell during the trial. Prison officials said they believed he hanged himself, but his family alleged that he was murdered.
And the sixth member of the group, a juvenile at the time of the crime, was tried by a juvenile court and sentenced to three years in a reforms facility. He has now been released after completing mandatory probation period in a remand home.
The gangrape shocked Indians and prompted protests across the country, and sparked a national debate on the treatment of women. Tough new laws were also introduced which allowed death penalty - carried out very rarely in India - to be handed down in the most serious cases of rape.
