Four Men Convicted in Rape Case That Transfixed India

Money Sharma/European Pressphoto Agency Police personnel entering the Saket court complex in New Delhi, on Tuesday, where the trial of the Delhi gang rape case continues.

Four men were convicted of all charges Tuesday in the rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman who was attacked when she boarded a bus in New Delhi last December, “bringing a bitter close to a case that tore open the subject of sexual violence in this rapidly changing society,” Ellen Barry wrote in The New York Times.

“The last and most urgent question - whether any of them will receive the death penalty - will be answered Wednesday, when they are sentenced at a morning hearing,” Ms. Barry wrote.

The family of the victim has demanded death sentences for all the four convicts, and much of the public seemed to share their anger, flooding the streets last year to demand swift punishment in the case.

“These monsters should be hanged,” said her mother, Asha Devi, in an interview to the news channel NDTV, as the family left for court on Tuesday morning. “When I saw her in the hospital later, she burst into tears and said, ‘Mummy, they beat me up very brutally.’” Her father, Badri Nath Singh, agreed.

“If they are not hanged,” he told the reporter, “it will be a shame for everyone.” READ MORE