Indian police say one of the men accused in the gang rape of a female student on a New Delhi bus has committed suicide in jail.
An official at Tihar jail says Ram Singh hanged himself with his own clothes Monday morning. Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde told reporters that the alleged suicide was a major lapse in security and that authorities were investigating its circumstances.
Singh's parents and lawyer insist Singh was murdered in prison, and that an old hand injury made him incapable of hanging himself.
Singh's father said his son told him that he had been sodomized by other inmates who had repeatedly threatened his life.
Singh was accused of driving the bus on which a 23-year-old student was raped and assault with an iron rod for more than two hours in December. Her internal injuries were so severe that she died two weeks later.
Authorities accused Singh of being the leader of the gang of five men and a juvenile. The trial of the five adult men began in a special fast-track court last month, while the juvenile's trial began last week.