Delhi gangrape: Ram Singh's death unlikely to affect trial, says Kiran Bedi

New Delhi: Ram Singh, the prime accused in the Delhi gangrape case, was found dead inside his cell in Tihar jail on Monday morning. Jail officials said he had committed suicide by hanging himself inside the cell using a piece of cloth that he tore off from a mat. While the Tihar jail has ordered an inquiry into the incident that is likely to cause it huge embarrassment, questions are now being raised on whether his suicide will affect the trial in the case.

While ex-chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW), Poornima Advani, has said that the trial will be adversely affected, former IPS officer Kiran Bedi said that if the prosecution was strong and if it had all the evidence, the trial would go on smoothly. "It just means one accused less," Kiran Bedi told CNN-IBN.

The five accused in the case were put under the suicide watch in January after they stopped interacting with other jail inmates and amongst themselves. Authorities in the Tihar jail said the five were not even talking to one another or to others in their barracks. "They just sit and brood," a jail source had said.

Kiran Bedi has said that as long as the prosecution has a strong case against the accused, the trial will not be affected.

The "suicide watch", officials had said, is an alert that the five could possibly harm themselves.

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