India considers death for rapists

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INDIA is considering using the death penalty to punish rapists as police fired tear gas to quell the most violent day of demonstrations against the brutal gang-rape of a young woman. Struggling to subdue mounting protests in the capital, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said the Congress-led government would look at "enhanced punishment in the rarest of rare rape cases" -- a reference to capital punishment. The current maximum penalty for rape is life imprisonment and "it (the death penalty) will have to be discussed in detail," Shinde told a news conference late on Saturday.

Thousands of protesters, many of them college students, converged at the India Gate monument in the heart of the capital in the biggest of nearly a week of demonstrations since the assault took place last Sunday. They then surged toward government buildings and the sprawling presidential palace, shouting "We want justice" and "Stop this shame" and remained late into the night as doctors said the victim was in critical but stable condition.Some carried banners that read: "Hang them (the rapists) now" and clashes erupted when a group in the crowd tried to break through police barricades and march towards the president's house. Some people hurled stones.

Some 20 students were injured in the clashes and taken to hospital, the Press Trust of India reported, while opposition party leaders condemned the police use of force to subdue the crowds. Shinde said the government was determined to make the country safer for women and appealed to demonstrators to disperse, saying, "You have shown your solidarity" with the 23-year-old rape victim. Six drunk men were joyriding in a bus last Sunday when they picked up the physiotherapy student and her 28-year-old male companion. They took turns raping her before throwing the pair off the speeding vehicle. During her ordeal, the victim was attacked with an iron rod, causing serious intestinal injuries. Six men have since been arrested. Police said the woman had given a "fearless account" of the attack from her intensive care bed. The attack was the latest in a series of violent assaults on women in the capital and elsewhere in the country that have triggered demands for stricter laws and swifter prosecutions. The attacks have broken the silence that has traditionally surrounded rape in India where victims of such assaults are often deemed to be dishonoured and unsuitable for marriage. Doctors said the condition of the woman was improving. "She is doing much better than yesterday. She took sips of water and apple juice," B.D. Athani, medical superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital, said. The victim is "very brave, positive and optimistic", said another doctor, Abhilasha Yadav. Sushma Swaraj, a leader of the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has demanded the death penalty for rapists while another senior BJP figure Ravi Shankar Prasad said New Delhi is becoming India's "rape capital". India has only executed two people since 2004 -- one of those being Mohammed Kasab, who was the sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The number of rape cases in New Delhi has risen by nearly one-fifth to 661 this year from a year ago, according to government figures, the highest among India's big cities. Experts say a combination of abusive sexual behaviour, a scant fear of the law and India's creaky judicial system encourage such attacks in the bustling city of 19 million people.