Protests Spread Across India over Woman's Bus Rape

Thousands hit the streets

The gang-rape of a young woman in New Delhi has sparked public outrage across India, bringing thousands of people onto city streets in protest against authorities' failure to ensure women's safety.

Sexual violence against women often goes unremarked and unreported in India, but on Friday hundreds of students and activists blockaded roads in New Delhi and marched to the president's palace, breaking through police barricades despite water-canon fire to demand the culprits' execution.

The 23-year-old woman is battling for her life in hospital after she was beaten, gang-raped for almost an hour and thrown out of a moving bus on a busy street of the capital last Sunday.