One of the men on trial for the fatal
gang rape of a student on a bus in India has been beaten and poisoned
by prison inmates and is unconscious in hospital, his lawyer has said.
Prison
authorities denied any mistreatment of Vinya Sharma, who has been at
New Delhi's Tihar Jail since he was arrested on suspicion of attacking
the woman in December that stunned India and brought thousands of
protesters onto the streets.
One of Sharma's co-accused, Ram Singh, the alleged ringleader, was found hanged from a ceiling grille inside his cell in March.
Indian policemen stand guard as an ambulance
leaves the main entrance of Tihar Jail in New Delhi, India, where one of
the men on trial for the gang rape of a student has been allegedly
beaten and poisoned
Police described his death as suicide although a judicial inquiry is pending.
Sharma's
lawyer, A.P. Singh, accused inmates of 'beating him on the chest' and
poisoning his food, and said he was admitted to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash
Hospital on Tuesday after being treated at another city hospital since
Sunday.
'Vinay was beaten by four or five
fellow inmates inside the jail premises,' he told Reuters, adding he was
in an unconscious state.
Sunil Gupta, a spokesman for Tihar Jail, said Sharma was being treated in a city hospital for a fever.
A demonstrator holds a placard during a protest
outside a court in New Delhi January after the student was raped and
murdered by a gang
'There was no such beating of Vinay to my knowledge. All the allegations are false,' he said.
Police
arrested Sharma and Singh, along with three other adult men and a
teenage boy, on charges of raping the 23-year-old physiotherapy student
on a moving bus and fiercely beating her and her male friend on December
16.
The woman died of her
injuries in a Singapore hospital two weeks after the assault, which
enraged the Indian population, who protested in their thousands for days
to demand better law enforcement to fight gender crimes.
The
city court where Sharma has stood trial since early this year asked
jail authorities and doctors on Wednesday to file reports on his health
today.
Sharma was falsely implicated in the case, his lawyer said at the start of the trial.
DAILYMAIL
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