NEW DELHI: The victim of the brutal gang rape that has outraged India has been flown to Singapore for emergency medical treatment, after suffering a cardiac arrest.
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The 23-year-old woman, who remains on life support and is suffering severe internal infection, may need multiple organ transplants. Mount Elizabeth Hospital described her condition as ''extremely critical''.
Horrific sexual violence is daily news in India, particularly in the nation's capital, but the brutality of this attack on the physiotherapy student, and her male companion, has exercised the nation.
Six men on a bus beat the man unconscious with an iron rod before turning on the woman, taking turns raping her and beating her for more than 40 minutes. The attackers then threw the pair naked from the moving bus. All six suspects have been arrested.
Delhi was gripped by days of mass protests, which left one police officer dead, until authorities effectively shut down the middle of the city.
The case has sparked a fight between Delhi's government and police force over who is to blame for failing to protect women.
Delhi's chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, wants her government to have direct control of the police. The Delhi government has insisted on more police night patrols, checks on bus drivers and the banning of buses with tinted windows or curtains.
The central Indian government has announced an inquiry into the assault, as well as a separate panel to examine punishments for sexual assaults, with a view to increasing penalties.
Many in India have called for the death penalty for rapists.
The case has forced the country to look critically at a pervasive culture of sexual violence.
''The nation has been witness to the anger and rage of our youth, who have gathered in the streets of Delhi and other cities to demand stronger measures to ensure safety of women,'' the President, Pranab Mukherjee, said. ''We, as a society, must work toward changing negative perceptions about women.''
Seven other particularly brutal rape cases, some involving gang rape and others children as young as two, have been reported in the past week alone.
A poll by TrustLaw this year found India was the worst Group of 20 nation in which to be a woman, behind even Saudi Arabia. Women face myriad pressures and threats, from the illegal abortion of female foetuses to the murder of brides by in-laws wanting a larger dowry, to child marriage, child prostitution and human trafficking.
