New Delhi:
An autopsy conducted on
Ram Singh, the main suspect in the Delhi gang-rape case, reportedly states that he died from hanging, say doctors who conducted the post-mortem and did not wish to be named.
Mr Singh was discovered dead in his cell in Tihar Jail early on Monday morning. Officials there say he committed suicide.
Doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) who conducted the autopsy have, in their report, said that there were no external injuries on Ram Singh's body. Earlier, his father, who attended today's three-hour examination of his son's body, had repeated the allegation that his son was murdered. Mange Lal Singh said he had found "multiple injuries" including marks on his son's chest, face and an injured eye.
Officials at Tihar Jail say Mr Singh, who was 35, managed to construct a noose of his shirt and a section of his sleeping mat, which he suspended from a grille on the ceiling of his prison cell by standing on a plastic bucket. They have no explanation for how he did this without alerting a guard posted outside or waking three other prisoners who were not connected to his case, but shared his cell.
The four other men who are being tried for the gang-rape and murder at a fast-track court in Delhi have asked for more security. Their lawyers have written to Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar and Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, who said yesterday that Mr Singh's death was "a grave lapse."
(Read)December's assault on a medical student on a moving bus in Delhi stunned and horrified India and made international headlines. The police say that Mr Singh was the ring-leader of a group of five men and a 17-year-old who violated her so badly with an iron rod that when she was taken to hospital, parts of her intestine were hanging out. She died in hospital two weeks later.