Three people committed the rape at knifepoint on the terrace of the Khooni Darwaza monument on the busy Bahadurshah Zafar Marg. The monument is situated opposite the main gate of the college.

The police were clueless for almost four days about the identity of the rapists -- despite getting the name of one suspect from the victim.

Finally on November 21 they arrested four persons, including two juveniles residing in a nearby slum.

The incident led to an uproar in Parliament with Advani saying death penalty for such crimes should be seriously considered.

As the investigations progressed, a DNA test proved that the semen sample recovered from the victim's sanitary pad matched that of prime accused, Rahul.

Also See Delhi police clueless Four persons chargesheeted NCW admits women unsafe on Delhi campuses

Between January and July 2002, 306 cases of teasing, 75 dowry deaths, 229 rapes, 243 molestations, 570 abductions were reported.

The increasing figures have prompted women's organisations to demand stringent laws and better conviction rates.

Kirti Singh, Supreme Court advocate, told The Indian Express that the low rate of conviction could be attributed to the poor quality of investigations, lodging of incomplete first information reports (at times refusal to lodge FIRs) and delays in the medical examination of the victims and collection of proofs.

Data for 1999 from the National Crime Records Bureau showed that Delhi reported a crime rate (the number of crimes per lakh population) of 431.6 for all Indian Penal Code crimes, nearly 2.5 times the national average rate of 178.9. Among mega cities (population of one million or more), Delhi reported the highest number of murder cases, followed by Mumbai and Kochi.

The capital also recorded the highest incidence of abductions among the 23 mega cities, rapes (32.9 per cent of the total rape cases that year), molestations (23.3 per cent) and dowry deaths (17.4 per cent).