- Student told brother she tried to fight off her attackers and bit and hit them
- Brother said sister always ?fought against atrocities? and was ?very strong?
- Also paid tribute to sister?s friend who tried to defend her during attack
- Said her life could have been saved if she was moved to Singapore sooner
- Gang-rape victim?s family say they won?t rest until those guilty are hanged
- Rapper Honey Singh?s gig cancelled over misogynistic lyrics outrage
- Indian Congress now proposes chemical castration for all rapists
- Protests break out over India calling for end to violence against women
- 16-year-old claims she was raped on bus same day gang-rape victim died
PUBLISHED: 04:30 EST, 30 December 2012 | UPDATED: 15:39 EST, 31 December 2012
The Indian woman who died after a horrific rape by a gang of men told her family as she lay dying in hospital that she tried as hard as she could to fight off her attackers.
The 23-year-old told her younger brother she bit and kicked the men as they raped her on a bus in Delhi. As they assaulted the student the men said they would kill her.
The woman died on Saturday despite treatment at a Singapore hospital.
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Following her death her brother paid tribute to the strength and courage she showed following her ordeal.
He said: ?She was very strong. She always said one should never bear atrocities but fight against it.
?While she was admitted in hospital, she told me that she fought back as hard as she could. She was defending herself by beating and biting them.
?She thrashed them and kicked them too. They were boiling in anger by her defence so they decided to kill her. She told me that they were murmuring ?maar do ise? (kill her). They threw her considering she was dead.?He also paid tribute to the woman?s friend, who was also attacked on the bus as they were returning home from a cinema trip.
Neighbours said the couple were planning to marry in February.
Her brother said: ?The boy was equally courageous like my sister. She told me that he guarded her until he became unconscious.?
He added that he hadn?t slept since the incident occurred.
?I?m missing her voice. She was my best friend. Whenever I had a problem, I talked to her over the phone for hours. She used to give me the best advice,? he said.
In an interview with The Indian Express today, the brother said he and her family believe she could have survived if she had been taken to Singapore for life-saving treatment sooner.
He said his sister caught a series of preventable infections in Delhi.
The trainee physiotherapist was flown to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore four days ago ? almost two weeks after she was raped by a gang of six men on a bus in Delhi.
?She could have been saved perhaps, but the decision came late,? her brother said, adding: ?Mount Elizabeth Hospital had very high standards of hygiene. They could have prevented the infection.?
It comes as a second victim, a 16-year-old girl claims she was raped by a conductor on a Delhi bus the same day as the gang-rape victim died.
The family of the 23-year-old student said they will ?fight? for the death penalty to be handed down to the perpetrators.
He said: ?The fight has just begun. We want all the accused hanged, and we will fight for that, till the end.?
The woman?s body was cremated yesterday after being brought back to Delhi by an aircraft chartered by the Indian government.
Her horrific ordeal has galvanised Indians to demand greater protection for women from sexual violence with mass demonstrations, candle-lit vigils and street protests with placards, chants and road blocks.
The Indian Army has cancelled New Year?s parties across its airforce, navy and army in a show of solidarity with the family.
A hotel in Gurgaon has cancelled rapper Honey Singh?s performance tonight after online outrage over his lyrics which boast about the different ways he will sexually assault a woman.
The Indian Congress has put forward plans for chemical castration and 30-year jail terms for all rapists following the attack.
A draft Bill has been put together and will be finalised and handed to India?s chief justice by the end of January.
Meanwhile the victim?s father who worked at the IGI airport has described his final conversation with his daughter in the Intensive Care Unit in Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi.
?She said, ?aap so jao, main bhi ab soungi? (you go to sleep, I will also sleep). Then she embraced my hand and slept as a tear dropped from the corner of her eye. Those were her last words to me. Thereafter, she never gained consciousness and didn?t talk to any of us,? he said.
He said his daughter was different from her peers in that she was sensible and responsible.
?She always wanted to support her family. She knew that worked hard to earn money and my sons are too young to earn,? he said.
?She worked in a call centre in Dehradun after her college hours earn. She gave her fees for two consecutive years in her college earning from the call centre. She bought us many gifts and things for the household.?
He said that she used to sleep for four to five hours a day only, the rest of the time she dedicated to work and study and was top of her class.
?She was very stubborn about books no matter how costly those were. I always fulfilled her demands because they were always genuine,? he added.
Her mother was taken to hospital yesterday after collapsing while her daughter was being cremated.
It has also emerged that she planned to marry her boyfriend, who was injured in the same attack, according to her neighbours.
The victim and her boyfriend had spent the evening watching The Life of Pi at a multiplex in the Saket district of Delhi when they were attacked on the bus home on December 16.
It is thought he defended his girlfriend after she was initially verbally abused by a group of six men.
They were then imprisoned on the bus by a gang for around an hour as it was driven around Delhi.
Their brutal assaults were hidden from view by the closed curtains on the bus.
She was also abused with a rod, which left her with horrific internal injuries. The pair were eventually hurled naked from the vehicle as it was still moving.
?They had made all the wedding preparations and had planned a wedding party in Delhi,? a neighbour told NDTV.
?We know that she was going to get married in February,? she said. ?The whole neighbourhood was excited about it.?
Yesterday?s private ceremony took place with Indian riot policemen standing guard outside the cremation centre in New Delhi.
Fearing the unrest amidst the public anger, the location and timing of the cremation was not disclosed, but it was held soon after the arrival of her body from Singapore on a special Air-India flight.
Her distraught mother collapsed and was admitted to Safdarjung Hospital after her daughter?s body was taken away.
Premier Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress party, were at the airport to receive the body and meet family members of the victim who had also arrived on the flight.
After the body arrived at the airport, it was taken to the woman?s home in New Delhi for religious rituals before being escorted by police to the crematorium.
Security was tight, with no access to the public or media at the crematorium.
Sheila Dikshit, the senior elected leader of New Delhi, and junior home minister R.P.N. Singh placed wreaths beside the body before it was cremated.
Details about the girl?s identity have not been released to protect the family.
But The Hindustan Times newspaper described her as a dedicated student who tutored neighbours? children to boost her family?s income
The parents had sold a plot of land nearby as well as land in their village in Ballia district of eastern Uttar Pradesh to fund their daughter?s education.
?Now her elder brother, who is preparing for his engineering entrance exams, has no hope to continue his studies. The family had depended on her future career to see them out of their poverty,? a neighbour called Vimla told IANS.
Indian police have charged six men with murder in the December 16 attack, which shocked the country and triggered protests for greater protection for women from sexual violence.
The six suspects face the death penalty if convicted, in a case that has triggered protests across India and raised questions about lax attitudes by police toward sexual crimes.
After 10 days at a hospital in New Delhi, the victim, who has not been identified, was taken on Thursday to Singapore?s Mount Elizabeth hospital, which specialises in multi-organ transplants.
Staff at Singapore?s Mount Elizabeth Hospital said she had died peacefully of multiple organ failure after suffering a heart attack.
?Despite all efforts by a team of eight specialists to keep her stable, her condition continued to deteriorate,? Dr Kelvin Loh, the hospital?s chief executive officer added.
?She had suffered from severe organ failure following serious injuries to her body and brain. She was courageous in fighting for her life for so long against the odds but the trauma to her body was too severe for her to overcome.?
Indian High Commissioner, to Singapore T.C.A. Raghanvan told reporters that the scale of the injuries she suffered was ?very grave? and in the end it ?proved too much.?
Doctors initially expected the woman to die quickly. She developed gangrene in her intestines and had to have most of them removed.
But the medical student defied their expectations. She had three surgeries and was attempting to walk.
Unable to speak she scribbled notes to her family and those who were caring for her.
?I want to live? she wrote. As she fought for life, public fury grew.
Following her death, thousands of Indians lit candles, held prayer meetings and marched through various cities and towns, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata, to express their grief and demand stronger protection for women and the death penalty for rape, which is now punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment.
The Times of India have given the woman the name Nirbhaya ? meaning fearless one.
After mass demonstrations,officers in Delhi had sealed off all roads which lead to the central India Gate, closed ten metro stations and deployed thousands of officers. One officer died in the protests.
Protest: A woman has her mouth taped during a rally to mourn the gang rape victim in New Delhi
Anger: Indian police officials stand alert behind a barricade which covered by a banner calling for capital punishment against rape in New Delhi
The capital has been rocked by protests for days with calls for the government to crack down on crimes against women.
Some demonstrators called for the woman?s attackers to be hanged.
Gatherings of more than five people have been banned in the city centre.
During the days of protests, reports reveal more than 100 people and about 70 officers have been hurt.
Police have used batons, teargas and water cannon to try and disperse the demonstrators after the authorities attempted to limit the public gatherings.
Women face daily harassment across India, ranging from catcalls on the streets, groping and touching in public transport, to rape.
The incident has forced India to confront the reality that sexually-assaulted women are often blamed for the crime, forcing them to keep quiet and discouraging them from reporting it to authorities for fear of exposing their families to ridicule.
Concern: Members of the top organ transplant medical team accompanied the gang rape victim to Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore Police often refuse to accept complaints from those who are courageous enough to report the rapes, and the rare prosecutions that reach courts drag on for years.
The tragic events has lead the woman chief minister of India?s West Bengal state Mamata Banerjee, unveiled plans today for 65 all-female police stations.
Prime minister Mr Singh said yesterday that he was aware of the emotions the attack has stirred, adding that it was up to all Indians to ensure that the young woman?s death will not have been in vain.
State of the art: transplant facilities at the Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre in Singapore, where the gang-rape victim underwent treatment, are said to be among the best in the world
The outcry over the attack caught the government off-guard and it was slow to react. It took a week for Singh to make a statement, infuriating many protesters who saw it as a sign of a government insensitive to the plight of women.
Ms Gandhi, the ruling party chief, assured the protesters in a statement that the rape victim?s death ?deepens our determination to battle the pervasive, the shameful social attitudes and mindset that allow men to rape and molest women and girls with such an impunity?.
Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the woman?s death was a sobering reminder of the widespread sexual violence in India.
?The outrage now should lead to law reform that criminalises all forms of sexual assault, strengthens mechanisms for implementation and accountability, so that the victims are not blamed and humiliated,? Ganguly said.
Mr Singh said he understood the angry reaction to the attack and he hoped all Indians would work together to make appropriate changes.
?It would be a true homage to her memory if we are able to channel these emotions and energies into a constructive course of action,? he said.
Attitudes by Indians toward rape are so entrenched that even politicians and opinion-makers have often suggested that women should not go out at night or wear clothes that might be seen as provocative.
Peaceful: Protestors want the government to take action to improve safety for women in India
A statement issued by United Nations spokesman Martin Nesirky said UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon ?offers his sincerest condolences? to the victim?s family and ?utterly condemns this brutal crime?.
?Violence against women must never be accepted, never excused, never tolerated,? the statement said. ?Every girl and woman has the right to be respected, valued and protected.?
Mr Ban urged the Indian government to take steps to deter such crimes and bring perpetrators to justice, and to ?strengthen critical services for rape victims?, the statement said.
New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India?s major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures.
Government data show the number of reported rape cases in the country rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011.
Rape victims rarely press charges because of social stigma and fear they will be accused of inviting the attack. Many women say they structure their lives around protecting themselves and their daughters from attack.
The victim?s death comes as another rape victim in India is believed to have committed suicide after police took 14 days to register her case and a further 30 days to make an arrest.
The six suspects have all been remanded in custody and two police officers suspended.
In response to the protests, the Indian government has promised to make public the photographs, names and addresses of convicted rapists.
Medics? protest: Medical workers protester at LNJP hospital against the recent gang-rape of a young woman in a moving bus in New Delhi
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