Convicts liable for cold blooded murder: Court

The fast-track court, delivering the verdict in the Dec 16, 2012 gang rape case said Tuesday the four accused were liable for the "cold blooded murder" of the "defenceless victim".

Additional Session Judge Yogesh Khanna in a 237-page judgment said the four accused "intentionally" killed the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who was gang raped by the six men, including a juvenile, in a moving bus.

"The facts do make all the accused liable for the cold blooded murder of the defenceless victim and thus the offence under section 302 (murder) stands proved and the accused persons are thus convicted," the judge said.

The court said the accused used rods to assault the victim and caused as many as "18 internal injuries to several organs" and the cause of death in the case was the direct consequence of the multiple injuries sustained by her.

"The accused persons adopted a unique modus operandi to do the acts. They besides causing external bodily harm inserted rods in the abdomen of victim. They did this act repeatedly and pulled out internal vital organs even by their hands. All these circumstances made an intended act done with the sole intention of causing death," the court said.

The attack on the victim was "inhuman and brutal", the judge said, adding that the doctors also described the injuries as "dangerous and extremely bad for definite repair and sufficient to cause death".

The incident occurred after the woman and her male companion boarded the bus in Munirka in south Delhi.

The six attackers in the bus threw both the physiotherapist intern and her male companion out of the vehicle -- without clothes -- on the street in the cold December night after committing the ghastly crime, police said.

The gang raped woman died of her injuries Dec 29 at Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital, where she was airlifted for specialised treatment.