Four men convicted of the 2012 gang rape and murder of a student in Delhi were executed on Friday at Tihar jail. Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta were hanged after the Supreme Court rejected their final appeals.
The four were among six convicted for the attack on a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on a moving bus. A juvenile was released in 2015 after serving three years, and the main accused, Ram Singh, died in jail in 2015. The executed men had sought to reduce their sentences to life imprisonment, but the courts upheld the death penalty.
Mukesh Singh, a bus driver, blamed the victim in a BBC documentary, saying 'a decent girl will not roam around at nine o'clock at night'. Vinay Sharma, a gym assistant, claimed he was not on the bus. Akshay Thakur, a helper, was convicted of destroying evidence. Pawan Gupta, a fruit seller, also denied involvement.
The executions mark the end of a case that sparked global outrage and protests over women's safety in India.
