Hospital says 23-year-old woman who was raped and severely beaten by six men in New Delhi has died from her injuries.
Doctors have announced that a young Indian woman who was gang-raped and severely beaten on a bus in India's capital, New Delhi, has died at their Singapore hospital.
A statement by Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital where the 23-year-old victim was being treated said she “died peacefully” early on Saturday.
“We are very sad to report that the patient passed away peacefully at 4.45am [local time] on December 29, 2012,” Kelvin Loh, the chief executive of Mount Elizabeth Hospital, said in a statement.
The statement said her family and officials from the High Commission of India were by her side.
The hospital said the woman, a paramedic student, had remained in an extremely critical condition since Thursday when she was flown to Singapore from India.
“Despite all efforts by a team of eight specialists in Mount Elizabeth Hospital to keep her stable, her condition continued to deteriorate over these two days,” Loh continued.
By late Friday, the young woman's condition had “taken a turn for the worse” and her vital signs had indicated severe organ failure, the hospital had earlier said.
She had also suffered a heart attack, a lung and abdominal infection and “significant” brain injury, it said.
T.C.A. Raghavan, the Indian High Commissioner to Singapore, said after her death that the family has expressed a desire for her body to be flown back to India.
Speaking to the media, he added: “In the end, she succumbed to her injuries because the scale of those injuries was very great.”
“The family of course is shattered by this development. At the same time, they realise that the best possible medical attention was provided to her. At the end, it was the scale of her injuries which proved too much for the medical treatment that was provided to her,” Raghavan said.
'Very serious condition'
Al Jazeera's Divya Gopalan, reporting from New Delhi early on Saturday, said: “She has been in hospital since the attack happened on December 16, she has been in hospital in very serious condition… just a few days ago they said her condition had worsened so they sent her to Singapore for treatment at a hospital that specialises in organ transplants.”
Gopalan continued: “She flew over there just over a day ago and doctors said once she arrived there she started receiving treatment again. Just a few hours ago they said she had multiple organ failure and they were trying to treat her with antibiotics.”
The horrific ordeal of the woman has galvanised Indians, who have held almost daily demonstrations to demand greater protection from sexual violence, from groping to rape, that impacts thousands of women every day, but which often goes unreported.
The victim and a male friend were traveling in a public bus on December 16 night when they were attacked by six men who raped her and beat them both.
They also inserted the rod in her body, stripped both naked and threw them off the bus on a road. Police have arrested the six attackers.
The attack two weeks ago brought new focus on police and community attitudes toward woman in India. Demonstrators in New Delhi have demanded stronger protections for women and stronger punishment for rapists.
The government has ordered an official inquiry into the attack and promised new laws to protect women as well as stiffer penalties for sex crimes.
It also announced plans to post the photos, names and addresses of convicted rapists on official websites to publicly shame them. The campaign is scheduled to begin in Delhi, which has been dubbed India's “rape capital”.
Source: Al Jazeera
We Bangladeshis join our fellow Indian nation in grief over this heart rendering incidence.
It is all talking and writing on such violent crime of rapes that takes place all around the world. When criminals inflicts unspeakable and serious injuries to the scale of causing death of innocent victims, then the culprits immediately should be brought to task by handing out death penalty without dilly dallying with the incident occurred. And,as it is not happening such crimes keep on creeping now and then; giving the criminals more confidence to carry out their criminal activities.