AFP IS CLOSING THE LIVE REPORT ON the India gang rape trial. A court in Delhi sentenced four men to death for the fatal gang rape of a physiotherapy student on board a bus in December 2012.
Protesters outside a court in Delhi call for the death penalty for four men convicted of rape and murder, on September 13, 2013.
The judge said the case, which sparked widespread anger over the treatment of women in the country, fell into the "rarest of rare category", which justified capital punishment: "In these times when crimes against women are on the rise, court cannot turn a blind eye to this gruesome act."
The courtroom burst into applause.
1012 GMT: AFP's correspondent Abhaya Srivastava reports that the gang will now be taken to Tihar prison in west Delhi where they will be held on death row.
This is same the jail where the men have been held since their arrest and where one of the gang, the bus driver Ram Singh, was found hanged in his cell in March.
1010 GMT: The debate over the death penalty has not ended with the decision to execute the gang. On social media not everyone agrees with the judgement.
Hindustan Times reader Chintan Vrajeshwari writes: “BAD JUDGEMENT...Judiciary influenced by public pressure...very bad development and shows badly on the judges who made this judgement. They have lost all sense of not being biased or pressured.”
0956 GMT: Calls for the executions to be carried out rapidly have appeared on social media. A NDTV reader named Veni writes: "Now with the same momentum please execute the punishment without any delay. No appeals, no mercy petitions, just execute them. Public hanging will send a strong message to all those rapists hidden in the crowd who are happy to have fooled the system!"
0950 GMT: Champa Devi, the mother of Vinay Sharma, spoke to AFP prior to the sentencing, from the slum in the south of the Delhi where most of the gang lived, saying her son and friend and fellow convict Pawan Gupta were "good boys".
"They are hard workers. Not one complaint against them.
"Then this Ram Singh caught him that night and trapped him into this mess."
0945 GMT: AFP's Delhi bureau says feelings have been running high in a country disgusted by daily reports of gang rapes and sex assaults on children.
A total of 1,098 cases of rape have been reported to police in Delhi alone so far this year, figures in The Times of India show.
0941 GMT: Handing down his verdict at the end of the seven-month trial, Judge Yogesh Khanna found the men guilty of the "cold-blooded" murder of a "helpless victim" whose fight for life won her the nickname of Braveheart.
0938 GMT: Former neighbours of the four attackers who lived in Ram Dass Camp, an unauthorised slum in Delhi, had promised to hand out sweets in celebration if the judge sent the men to the gallows.
Maur Singh, a one-time neighbour, earlier told AFP: "They deserve the harshest punishment... Reform is out of the question."
0935 GMT: "This is a landmark judgement. It has set an example and shows people that the law will punish you. These men deserve death," says Akanksha Kumari, a 21-year-old student, protesting outside the court wearing a black head band.
0931 GMT: AFP's correspondent Annie Banerji writes from the court: "Scores of people waited outside the court building to hear the verdict. Police barricaded the entire road where the court stands. Dozens of protesters cheered the judgement, chanting slogans and holding posters reading "hang the rapists".
0926 GMT: Reflecting the widespread anger over the case, some online commentators have called for the juvenile involved in the fatal rape to be attacked and killed.
The teenager was sentenced by a different court to three years in a correctional facility -- the maximum possible sentence under Indian law.
0920 GMT: But as the news broke, the crowds inside the building and outside the courtroom roared with cheers and applauded the judgement.
0918 GMT: AFP's Roberto Schmidt says more protestors have arrived outside the court some carrying indian flag and placards.... "They seem to getting more agitated."
0913 GMT: The reaction online at the news the attackers would hang was celebratory:
One Hindustan Times reader writes: "Finally ...justice.. great job done judiciary.."
0908 GMT: The father of the gang rape victim says he is 'happy' with the death sentences.
"We are very happy. Justice has been delivered," he told reporters inside court flanked by his wife and sons.
0905 GMT: Judge Yogesh Khanna told the court that the case fell into the "rarest of rare category", which justified capital punishment.
One of the men, Vinay Sharma, broke down in tears as the sentence was announced.
0902 GMT: AFP's Abhaya Srivastava reporting from the courtroom says the convicts look sad and appear to be teary-eyed.
They are dressed more smartly than at previous court appearances. Three of them are in shirts and one in a T-shirt.
0859 GMT: THE NEW DELHI GANG RAPISTS HAVE BEEN SENTENCED TO DEATH.
0856 GMT: AFP’s Delhi bureau reports that the mother of one of the convicted, Akshay Thakur, has been praying to Hindu deities all week at the family’s home in poverty-stricken Bihar state.
She has pleaded for the life of her son to be spared. "I am hopeful that God will help us during the worst crisis in our life."
0853 GMT: It's not certain that the court will pass the death penalty in this case, but India ended its unofficial eight-year moratorium on capital punishment last November when it executed the only surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Weeks later, a Kashmiri was hanged over his role in an attack on parliament a decade ago.
0845 GMT: In the past few days, the victim's mother has begged the judge to hand down the death sentence. The identity of the parents cannot revealed in order to protect the identity of their late daughter.
"We beg the court that justice should be given to our daughter," the mother told reporters. "It was not merely a mistake, they planned and killed her mercilessly."
Both parents say only the death penalty can bring the family some closure.
0840 GMT: Among the messages posted on India's DNTV website is one from a commentator called Singh: "Nothing Will Happen!!! Even If They Get life sentence or death, they will appeal in upper courts, district, high, supreme and it goes on and on and on......"
0838 GMT: AFP's South Asia Chief Photographer, Roberto Schmidt says: "Hundreds of journalists, two dozen protestors and scores of policemen, some in riot gear and using horses have gathered in front of courthouse."
0833 GMT: Debate continues to rage online over whether the four men should be given the death sentence.
One reader on the Hindustan Times website says: "The judgement should be according to the merits of the case and nothing else! This idea that Death Penalty should be given to all 4 of them, just because there is a Mob outside the court is absolutely WRONG!"
Others have called for the rapists to be shown no mercy and be killed.
0828 GMT: Police sources have told AFP correspondent Annie Banerji outside the court that the convicted have arrived, transported in a bus with blacked out windows.
0825 GMT: AFP photographer Manan Vatsyayana, standing outside the court, says a large crowd of TV journalists and press have gathered to cover the trial. He says police are carrying riot gear in anticipation of trouble following the sentencing.
WELCOME TO AFP'S LIVE REPORT on the sentencing of four men found guilty of the murder and gang rape of a young student on a bus in Delhi in December 2012. The attack sparked mass protests across India and triggered the introduction of tough new anti-rape laws.
The parents of the 23-year-old physiotherapy student have been at the forefront of calls for the men, Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma, to be sentenced to death over the attack.
A juvenile has already been sentenced to three years in a correctional facility, while a fifth adult defendant, bus driver Ram Singh, was found hanging in his prison cell in March while awaiting trial.
The victim and her companion had spent the evening watching a movie at a mall in south Delhi when they were picked up by one of the many private buses plying the streets.
But rather than take them home, the group subjected the pair to a horrifying 45-minute ordeal that ended with both of them thrown out of the bus, virtually unconscious and naked.
The young woman, who was repeatedly raped and then violated with an iron rod, died of her injuries two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.
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