JOIN USVinay Sharma, one of the convicts in the December 16 rape and murder case, tried to commit suicide in Tihar Jail late on Wednesday night, police said.
Sharma was admitted to Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospital at 10.45 pm on Wednesday. He is in a stable condition.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Pushpendra Kumar said police were not ruling out the possibility of the suicide attempt being staged.
“He has appealed in the Supreme Court against his death sentence and the hearing is in the near future,” he said. Another accused in the 2012 case had committed suicide in the same jail in 2013.
Sharma, who was alone in the cell, tried to hang himself with a towel from a grill in jail number 8 of Tihar prison. He also seemed to have consumed an overdose of anti-depressants, however, a security personnel spotted him.
Six persons were arrested for brutally raping a 23-year-old physiotherapist in a moving bus when she was returning home at night after a movie on December 16, 2012.
She and her friend were then thrown out of the bus. The woman died later at a Singapore hospital. The rape and her subsequent death triggered widespread protests and demands for a change in the law.
Ram Singh, another accused in the case, committed suicide in his cell in March 2013. Of the remaining five, a juvenile was released after three years in a remand home.
The other four were sentenced to death. Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Mukesh Singh and Pawan Gupta have appealed in the Supreme Court against the death sentence awarded to them.
The chief medical officer at the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital said doctors have run tests on Sharma to determine if there had actually been a suicide attempt. The reports should be available on Thursday morning, he told Deccan Herald.