India court orders first death sentences for multiple rapes

An Indian court on Friday ordered three men to hang after they were convicted of two gang-rapes, the first death sentences to be handed down for multiple sex attacks since the law was toughened last year. The three - Kasim Bengali (21), Mohammed Salim Ansari (28) and Vijay Jadhav (19) - have already been awarded a life term in another gangrape case in which a telephone operator was brutalised in the Shakti Mills compound in south Mumbai. The three were held guilty under section 376 (E) of the Indian Penal Code which stipulates a maximum punishment of death penalty, and this is considered a landmark judgement since it is the first conviction under the amended section. The Mumbai Police had arrested a total of seven men for the two gangrapes. Two of them were juveniles and are being tried separately by the Juvenile Justice Board. The rest five were convicted by a Mumbai court, three of them for both gangrapes, according to AFP.