Four men convicted of the gang-rape and murder of a student on a moving bus in Delhi were hung on Friday morning, seven years after the attack that shocked India. The brutal attack on Jyoti Singh and her male friend, by six men in December 2012, led to nationwide
protests and more severe anti-rape laws in the country. The Prime Minister of
India Narendra Modi, tweeted ‘justice has prevailed’ after the executions, and said he hoped to ‘build a nation where the focus is on women’s empowerment.’ In 2018, Thomson Reuters named India as the most dangerous nation in the world to be a woman. A mob gathered outside the high-security Tihar
prison after the executions of Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh, chanting ‘death to rapists.’ Another of the student's attackers committed suicide while in jail, and another - a minor - controversially spent just three years in a reform facility, the maximum sentence available for his age. Public opinion has largely been in favour of capital punishment in the widely-publicised case, with activists hoping it will act as a deterrent. “The horrific gang rape has shocked the entire nation, the crime was so brutal that an entire country was outraged,” said Swati Maliwal, the Chairperson at the Delhi Commission for Women. “We welcome the hanging of the rapists and believe that the country needs to now work on stricter laws to ensure no-one ever dares to commit such crimes again.” The execution was the first use of capital punishment in India since 2015.