Main accused in India’s gang-rape commits suicide in jail

News reports from India said the main accused in the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi in December has hanged himself in jail while in solitary confinement, prompting outrage from the victim’s family.

Ram Singh, the accused was found dead Monday, after making a noose out of his clothing, according to officials at Delhi’s top-security Tihar jail..

He was one of the six people on trial over the shocking attack.

“He tied all his clothes together and used the ceiling grille and a wooden stool to hang himself,” the prison’s law officer Sunil Gupta told AFP by phone.

He added that a judicial magistrate had begun an investigation to probe any security lapses surrounding the suicide of Singh, who was in his 30s and was the bus’s regular driver.

But the father of the 23-year-old gang-rape victim, Badri Singh Pandey said it was clear that authorities had been negligent and that the family had been denied justice.

“We don’t understand how the police could fail to protect Ram Singh. They knew he was the prime accused in my daughter’s case,” said Badri Singh Pandey.

“How could they let him choose the way he wanted to die? The police have failed and I wonder what will happen to the case now.”

The victim’s mother said she was shocked to hear of the suicide.

“I just wanted justice for my daughter. The main accused is dead. Maybe the guilt killed him?” she told AFP.

Singh was making regular appearances in a New Delhi court where he faced murder, rape and kidnapping charges over the crime which ignited street protests and soul-searching about endemic sex crime in India.

Four other men charged over the gang-rape face the death sentence if convicted in a special fast-track court, whose proceedings are subject to a media gagging order. They have all pleaded not guilty.

A sixth 17-year-old suspect is being tried in a juveniles’ court where he faces a maximum three years imprisonment.

The victim, Jyoti Singh Pandey, who was studying physiotherapy, died on December 29 at a hospital in Singapore, 13 days after the attack.

As well as being repeatedly raped, she was also violated with a metal bar, leaving her with massive internal injuries.

Singh, a widower whose younger brother Mukesh is also an accused, was the regular driver of the white private bus alleged to have been used for the December 16 crime, which was normally used to ferry school children.

Police say Singh and friends had enjoyed a meal together and had been drinking heavily before deciding to take the bus out for a night-time joy ride, picking up passengers who mistook the vehicle for genuine public transport.