Agencies, New Delhi The main accused of December 16 Delhi gangrape case, Ram Singh, today allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in the high security Tihar Jail here.
Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit ordered an inquiry into the incident and met Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde to discuss the law and order situation in the national capital. The family and the lawyer of the accused have expressed doubts over Ram Singh killing himself. His father and mother have been quoted saying that since one of his hands was injured he could not have committed suicide as being told by the jail authorities. His lawyer A P Singh also said Ram Singh was fine when he spoke to him last. The incident came to light around 0500 hrs when he was found hanging inside jail number 3. He was immediately rushed to the jail hospital but was declared dead on arrival.
The body was then sent for post-mortem at Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) hospital. ‘’Singh was not alone in the cell. Other inmates were also present besides a guard. But nobody came to know about it,’’ a jail official said. ‘’He tied all his clothes together and used the ceiling grill and a wooden stool to hang himself,’ the prison’s law officer Sunil Gupta said adding that a judicial magistrate has begun an investigation into the suicide to probe any security lapses. Singh was to be produced in Saket court today.
The gangrape accused were woken up by 0500-0530 hrs daily and taken to Saket court on their hearing date in a bus and kept in a lockup there. However, the incident has raised several questions on the safety of inmates inside the high-security jail. Ram Singh, one of the six accused in the Delhi gangrape case, was the driver of the bus in which the 23-year-old paramedical student was raped. The victim died in a Singapore hospital December 29.
He was arrested along with his brother and four others, including a minor, hours after the crime. He and his co-accused had also faced fellow inmates’ ire after being lodged in Tihar Central Jail. Tihar Jail authorities had earlier said all the five accused in the case were under ‘suicide watch’ as they had stopped talking and interacting amongst themselves.
