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Indian gang-rape victim dies

NEW DELHI, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- The 23-year-old woman who was gang-raped on a bus in New Delhi this month died early Saturday at a hospital in Singapore, hospital officials said.

The woman -- a student whose name has not been reported -- had been listed in critical condition at the hospital, where she was taken for treatment. She was pronounced dead at 4:45 a.m., The (Singapore) Straits Times reported.

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The hospital said late Friday there had been signs of organ failure, the newspaper said.

Six men raped her Dec. 16 on a bus she and her boyfriend were riding on. They beat her boyfriend and then threw both victims off the bus.

The woman had undergone three surgical procedures since the attack.

The Indian government, facing mounting public pressure over sexual violence against women, said it will publicly name thousands of convicted sex offenders.

Indian Minister of State for Home Affairs R.P.N. Singh said the government will publish sex offenders' names, photographs and addresses, starting in New Delhi where protests have mounted over the gang rape, some of the protests turning violent, The Guardian reported.

"We are planning to start the process [of identification] in Delhi," Singh said. "Photographs, names and addresses of the rapists will be uploaded on the Delhi police website also."

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Police chiefs and government officials were to meet with activists and others Friday to go over the implementation of the plan to publish the information, despite concerns of potential vigilante attacks against the convicted offenders.

"It is true that there is a risk of such attacks but at the moment it is the victim who has to suffer the shame and social ostracism," Ranjana Kumari, director of Delhi's Center for Social Research, told The Guardian. "She can't get married, for example. This will make sure the rapist is shamed. He won't get a job, or somewhere to live and will be cut off from society. This is a powerful deterrent."

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