Delhi gang-rape victim to haunt attackers with ‘dying declaration’

The 23-year-old student whose gang-rape and murder on a Delhi bus last month provoked protests throughout India named her killers and revealed the terrible details of their savage attack in a ‘dying declaration’ seen by the Daily Telegraph. The physiotherapy student, now known as ‘India’s daughter’, was attacked by six men on December 16 after she boarded a bus with a friend as they returned from a trip to a cinema in one of the city’s smart shopping malls. She was beaten so badly that 95 per cent of her intestines had to be removed in a series of operations and she died 13 days later in a Singapore hospital where doctors said she had suffered from severe internal and brain injuries, a heart attack, and abdominal infections. Five men appeared in court earlier this week charged with her kidnap, gang-rape and murder, while a sixth defendant, who is believed to be 17, will be tried in a juvenile court. Lawyers for four of the men said they will plead not guilty and claim they were tortured by police into making false confessions. But they will also be accused by the victim from beyond the grave in a “dying declaration” made to a magistrate as she fought to survive her injuries in Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital on December 21 – eight days before she died. The declaration is part of the prosecution case against the men and a copy of it was shown to the Daily Telegraph. Agencies