Ram Singh, the alleged driver and “mastermind” behind the gang rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in India last December is said to have hung himself in his cell early Monday. Ram Singh’s lawyer, however, does not believe that his client committed suicide. “I doubt if this is a case of suicide," said Singh’s lawyer, V.K. Anand, to CNN-IBN television network according to a Los Angeles Times report on Monday, March 11, 2013.
Ram Singh’s lawyer commented that his client “was satisfied with the legal proceedings and had no reason to kill himself.”
Last December, Ram Singh, four other adults and one juvenile, allegedly targeted a 23-year-old girl and her male friend in a commuter bus in New Delhi in India, beat both of them with metal rods, and raped the woman while the bus was moving. After the brutal attack, the two victims were thrown naked along the road.
“She died two weeks later of internal injuries at a Singapore hospital. In a futile effort to save her life, surgeons removed most of her intestines when gangrene set in.” The girl’s male friend survived the attack with a broken leg.
In February, only three months after the gang rape, all five adults faced trial for their brutal attack and faced a potential death penalty. The sixth member of the gang, a 17-year-old juvenile, is facing a maximum of three years in detention. While Ram Singh is believed to have been the driver and “mastermind” behind the gang rape, the juvenile is believed to have been the most violent attacker.
Following Ram Singh’s alleged suicide, the dead girl’s brother told “CNN-IBN off-camera on Monday” that Ram Singh only did what would have happened anyway; death by public hanging.
Ram Singh’s lawyer, however, is doubting the circumstances of the alleged suicide. Ram Singh was in his jail cell in New Delhi’s Tihar Prison with two others on Monday morning around 5 a.m. when he supposedly used the fabric of a mat to fashion a noose in order to hang himself.
After Ram Singh’s alleged suicide, his body “was taken to New Delhi's Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, where a postmortem was to be performed. Jail officials said Singh had been on suicide watch, and they would investigate how his death happened.”
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