India executed four men on Friday for the gang-rape and murder of a woman on a Delhi bus in 2012 that sparked huge nationwide protests and international revulsion. The four were hanged before dawn at Tihar Jail in the Indian capital, prison chief Sandeep Goel told AFP.
"The beasts have been hanged," the victim's mother told reporters outside the jail. The brutal attack on Jyoti Singh sparked weeks of demonstrations and shone a spotlight on the alarming rates of sexual violence and the plight of women in India, where around 95 rapes are reported daily.
"We are satisfied that finally my daughter got justice after seven years," Singh's mother Asha Devi said, as a small crowd celebrated outside the prison.
"Today all Indian women received justice," Delhi resident Meena Sharma told AFP, clutching an Indian flag. "I came here around 3:00 am in the morning. I waited here as today is a great day for us."
Celebrations were also held in Singh's ancestral village in northern Uttar Pradesh state, where her extended family members exchanged sweets.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi responded to the execution on Twitter, saying "justice has prevailed".
"It is of utmost importance to ensure dignity and safety of women," he tweeted. Many of his cabinet colleagues also expressed their satisfaction. But the European Union, while condemning the "heinous" crime, reiterated its opposition to executions, calling it a "cruel and inhumane punishment, which fails to act as a deterrent".
Rights Group Amnesty India called the executions another "dark stain" on India's record.
They were India's first executions since 2015.
Singh, 23, was returning home from the cinema with a male friend at night on December 16, 2012 when they boarded a Delhi bus, thinking it would take them home.
Five men and a 17-year-old aboard the vehicle knocked the friend unconscious and dragged Singh to the back of the bus before raping and torturing her with a metal rod. The physiotherapy student and the friend were then dumped on the road. Singh died 13 days later in a Singapore hospital from massive internal injuries.