NEW DELHI – A court ruled on Thursday that three men convicted of two gang rapes in Mumbai could face the death penalty.
This was coming under a new law which allows capital punishment for repeat offenders.
A Mumbai Court found Vijay Jadhav, Kasim Bengali and Salim Ansari guilty under Section 376 E of the Penal Code, applied after the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi in December 2012.
The three Mumbai men were all previously given life imprisonment for two separate gang rapes of a photojournalist and a telephone operator in a deserted mill in 2013.
The prosecution in the case of the photojournalist requested the court to consider applying the new law on repeat offences.
The photographer was on assignment at the mill in August with a male colleague when five men tied him up and raped her.
After the case made headlines, the telephone operator came forward, saying she had been raped at the same location a month earlier.
She identified three of the men accused in the photojournalist’s case as among the four who raped her.
Two minors, one involved in each case, are being tried by a separate juvenile court.
The Mumbai attacks sparked renewed public anger over women’s safety in India after the 2012 New Delhi attack led to weeks of protests.
The government promised swifter prosecutions after the New Delhi gang rape and laws against sexual violence were made stricter. (dpa/NAN)