Main accused in Delhi gang-rape found dead in cell

Lawyers for the defendants have previously claimed their clients had been attacked and Ram Singh's attorney V.K. Anand said police should open a murder inquiry.

The main accused in the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi last December was found dead in his prison cell Monday, prompting fury from the victim's family and accusations of murder.

Officials at the maximum-security Tihar Prison on the outskirts of the Indian capital said bus driver Ram Singh had hanged himself with a noose made out of his clothing.

But Singh's parents said there was no way their son could have committed suicide and that he had told them his life was in danger, while his lawyer said the death should be treated as murder.

Singh, one of six people on trial over the attack which brought simmering anger about sex crime in India to the boil, was found dead at around 5:15am in his solitary confinement cell.

"He tied all his clothes together and used the ceiling grille and a wooden stool to hang himself," the prison's law officer Sunil Gupta told AFP.

Gupta said a judicial magistrate had begun an investigation to probe any security lapses surrounding the death of Singh, who was in his 30s and was the bus's regular driver.

The father of the 23-year-old gang-rape victim told AFP it was clear authorities had been negligent.

"We don't understand how could the police fail to protect Ram Singh. They knew he was the prime accused in my daughter's case," said the father, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

"How could they let him choose the way he wanted to die? The police have failed and I wonder what will happen to the case now."

The victim's mother said she was shocked to hear of the suicide.

"I just wanted justice for my daughter," she told AFP.

Singh was making regular appearances in a New Delhi court where he faced murder, rape and kidnapping charges over a crime that ignited street protests and soul-searching about India's treatment of women.

Four other men charged over the gang-rape face the death sentence if convicted in a special fast-track court, the proceedings of which are subject to a media gagging order. They have all pleaded not guilty.

A sixth 17-year-old suspect is being tried in juvenile court where he faces a maximum three years imprisonment.

Lawyers for the defendants have previously claimed their clients had been attacked and Ram Singh's attorney V.K. Anand said police should open a murder inquiry.