Delhi gang-rape: Carpenter says he too would have been killed

A man, who was allegedly robbed by the gang rape convicts before they targeted the 23-year-old paramedic student and her friend on December 16, told a Delhi court on Thursday that he too would have been killed had he not been thrown out of the moving bus.

A man, who was allegedly robbed by the gang rape convicts before they targeted the 23-year-old paramedic student and her friend on December 16, told a Delhi court on Thursday that he too would have been killed had he not been thrown out of the moving bus.

"If I had not been thrown out, I would have been killed by the accused," Ram Adhar, a carpenter, told Additional Sessions Judge Daya Prakash during his deposition as a prosecution witness in the case.

Ram Adhar had earlier identified the four adult accused — Mukesh, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Singh Thakur — and said they had beaten and robbed him.

The accused allegedly lured him into the bus, robbed him and threw him out of the vehicle. They then went on to lure the 23-year-old girl to board the bus and assaulted and raped her in the moving vehicle on the night of December 16.

Ram Adhar told the court that he had identified the bus in which the incident had occurred by its "physical appearance" and registration number during the probe into the case. "It is incorrect to suggest that I was never robbed by the accused persons present in the court today. I am not deposing falsely in the case," he said.