The Delhi gang-rape case ignited massive protests in December last year and forced the introduction of tougher laws to punish sexual offences
"I am innocent! I am innocent!" shouted one of the four men found guilty of the gang-rape and murder of a young student on a moving bus in Delhi as the group arrived at the court where they could be sentenced today.
The men face either life imprisonment or death by hanging, as demanded by the prosecution, which told the judge, "they showed no mercy even when she begged for mercy. There should be no mercy for merciless convicts."
The barbarous attack committed in December tore into India, forcing street protests, new laws for sex offences, and a national debate on the safety of women.
"They have shown no remorse," said the mother of the girl who died, insisting that the convicts must hang. "She wanted them to be set on fire," she added before she left for court this morning.
In his verdict yesterday delivered after a nine-month trial, Judge Yogesh Khanna said the men had murdered "a helpless victim." His order diagrammed the horrors of the attack, referring to the young woman's "18 internal injuries" caused by an iron rod that was used to beat her male friend and violate her.
Defence lawyers have said they will appeal in a higher court.
Bus cleaner Akshay Kumar Singh, gym instructor Vinay Sharma, fruit-seller Pawan Gupta, and unemployed Mukesh Singh lured the woman and a male friend onto the off-duty school bus on the night of December 16 as the pair returned home from watching a movie at a mall.
After gang-raping her for 45 minutes, they threw the couple, naked and semi-conscious, on the road. She died in a Singapore hospital two weeks later.
Six men were arrested. One killed himself in his prison cell in march. Another, who was 17 at the time of the attack was sentenced by a juvenile court last month to three years in a reform home.