Delhi policemen stand guard near the gate of a district court where the accused in the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student are undergoing trial on Jan. 24, 2013. The trial of the five men charged began in a closed courtroom Thursday with opening arguments by the prosecution lawyers in a special fast-track court set up just weeks ago to handle sexual assault cases.Altaf Qadri/The Associated Press
An Indian court on Friday lifted a gag order on the media covering the trial of a group of men accused of raping and killing a student in Delhi, a move that will shed light on the daily hearings in a case which sparked global outrage.
A court had banned India's hundreds of 24-hour news channels, newspapers and foreign media from reporting the trial. But that order was revoked by the Delhi High Court following an appeal by an activist lawyer who said the hearings should be transparent.
Police say five men and a juvenile raped and tortured a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on a moving bus in December last year, and then tossed her naked and bleeding body on to the road.
The student, whose name cannot be disclosed for legal reasons, died in a Singapore hospital two weeks later. The defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges of gang rape and murder. The juvenile is being tried separately.
The student's death stunned India and sparked street protests, uproar in parliament and provoked months of debate on the safety of women in the world's largest democracy.
Lifting the gag order could uncover previously unknown details in the case that has already seen several twists, including the sensational death of the group's alleged ringleader, found hanged in a Delhi prison earlier this month.
"The Delhi High Court order is a victory of freedom of the press," Meenakshi Lekhi, a Supreme Court lawyer who petitioned for the media ban to be overturned, told Reuters.
At the first hearing since the media ban was lifted on Friday, the four accused stood listening to police evidence.
Every now and then the defence and prosecution lawyers engaged in verbal spats, prompting Judge Yogesh Khanna to say: "What is this? There are people from various institutions seated here today, including the media, and look at how you're behaving."
A police officer described raiding the home of one of the accused, Akshay Thakur, retrieving a pair of jeans believed to have been worn on the day the rape, covered in blood patches around the pockets and the groin.
At the end of the hearing, the parents of co-accused Vinay Sharma walked into the court room. He burst into tears, walked towards his parents and touched their feet as a mark of respect.
On Thursday, parliament approved a tough new law to punish sex crimes, including death for repeat rape offenders, criminalising voyeurism, and making acid attacks and human trafficking specific offences.
Other cases of sexual assault after the Delhi case have received extensive coverage in the media, including the gang rape of a Swiss tourist who was camping with her husband in an Indian forest.