Anticipation hung heavier than the sultry air outside the massive court complex Friday afternoon. Here and all across India, people awaited the decision from Courtroom No. 304.
Inside the wood-paneled room lighted by the glare of harsh white lights, the four men found guilty of gang-raping a Delhi womanwould learn whether they would die for their crime. Three exchanged their t-shirts for collared shirts on this day, one of the most important of their lives.
Life or death? The people clamored for the latter.
A curious crowd gathered outside the courtroom as the clock neared 2:30 p.m., when Judge Yogesh Khanna was set to convene his court. Some traveled great distances to be present when the sentences were read.
It was almost as though this were judgment day for all of India.
There are no cameras allowed inside the courthouse, but everyone had a cell phone. One woman stood on a bench, held her dated Samsung high in the air and pressed the video button. She wanted to capture every moment.
Mounted police as well as a water cannon truck were the most obvious signs of the combustive atmosphere. Authorities blocked off the road in front of the Saket District Court complex in hopes of preventing angry clashes. Dozens of journalists set up roadside mini studios to file what felt to many like the biggest story of the year.
Prosecutors argued that the men -- Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh -- deserved to die for an "extreme act of brutality." The woman's family members have said the same. To them and many others gathered here, nothing less could deliver justice. Nothing else could be an appropriate ending to a case that has gripped India.
People here had waited for this day for nine long months, since December 16, when the woman, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, went to see "The Life of Pi" with a male friend.
The movie theater is in an upscale mall just a short walk from this court complex. The woman -- Indian law forbids naming rape victims -- and her friend boarded a private bus to make their way home from South Delhi to the suburbs.
The driver and at least five other men, said police, were drunk that night and looking for a joyride. They dragged the woman to the back of the bus and beat up her friend, authorities claim; then they took turns raping her, using an iron rod to violate her as the bus drove around the city for almost an hour. When they had finished, they dumped their victims on the side of the road.
The woman's internal injuries were so severe that some organs had to be removed. Two weeks later, at a hospital in Singapore, she died.
The horrific nature of the crime got to people. It was like a bomb had exploded inside the collective Indian psyche.
The nation erupted in outrage. Crowds poured into the streets of major cities and openly questioned the civility of their own society. How could the world's most populous democracy, a nation that had finally made its stand on the global stage, allow such a heinous act to take place?
As India waited to hear the fate of the men responsible for casting such a dark shadow over their nation, a national discussion blossomed on the treatment of women. It included a call for tougher punishment for sexual assault. For some at the courthouse, Friday's sentence would be a test, of sorts, of whether the message had been heeded.
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