Asha Devi, mother of the victim of the fatal 2012 gang rape on a moving bus, is surrounded by journalists as she displays a victory sign after the rapists of her daughter were hanged in New Delhi, India, Friday, March 20, 2020. Four men were sentenced to capital punishment for the 2012 gang-rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on a moving bus in New Delhi have been executed. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
March 19, 2020 - 6:36 PM
NEW DELHI - The brutal gang rape of a young woman on a moving New Delhi bus in 2012 exposed the scope of sexual violence in India and prompted stiffer penalties and other changes to the country's rape laws.
A timeline of events in the case that ended Friday with the executions of four of the attackers:
— Dec. 16, 2012: A 23-year-old student is beaten, raped for almost an hour and thrown out of a moving bus in India’s capital by six people who also beat her male friend with a metal rod.
— Dec. 17-22, 2012: Police arrest suspects in the attack as thousands of protesters in the capital demand the death penalty.
— Dec. 29, 2012: The woman dies of her injuries. Then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says he is deeply saddened by her death, and pledges to channel emotions surrounding the attack into action. Six suspects are charged with murder.
— Jan. 3, 2013: The father of the victim demands that the accused be hanged and calls for sex crimes legislation to be named in honour of his daughter, whom Indian media called “Nirbhaya” or “fearless.”
— March 11, 2013: One of the accused, who police say was the leader of the attack, hangs himself in jail.
— March 21, 2013: India approves a law with tougher punishment of sex crimes, including death for repeat rapists.
— Aug. 31, 2013: The teenage defendant in the case is sentenced to three years in juvenile detention.
— Sept. 10-13, 2013: The four remaining suspects are found guilty of murder and gang rape and are sentenced to death.
— Dec. 20, 2015: The teenager convicted in the attack is released from juvenile detention.
— May 5, 2017: India’s top court upholds the verdicts, finding that the defendants' crimes created a "tsunami of shock" in India and fell under the category of the "rarest of rare” cases.
— March 20, 2020: After their final appeals are all turned away, the four convicts are hanged at Tihar Jail in New Delhi.
News from © The Associated Press, 2020