3 men who raped Indian journalist last year sentenced to death; 24 men sentenced in 1996 case

An Indian court has sentenced to death three men who raped a photojournalist inside an abandoned textile mill in the financial hub of Mumbai last year.

Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam says he asked for the death sentence under a strict anti-rape law introduced in India last year.

The three men were found guilty last month of raping a call-center operator at the same abandoned mill. Nikam described the three as habitual offenders.

India increased penalties for sex crimes after public anger followed the fatal rape of a 23-year-old medical student in December 2012 in New Delhi. Four men were sentenced to death in the New Delhi case.

Also Friday, 24 men were sentenced to prison for raping a teenager in Kerala state in 1996.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

One man was sentenced to life and 23 others to varying prison terms on Friday for raping a teenager who was kidnapped and held for several weeks in southern India 18 years ago, a prosecutor said.

The 16-year-old victim was abducted in 1996 and raped in homes, hotels, cars and public buses by the attackers over the next one and a half months. The men convicted in the case Friday included a retired professor, lawyers, businessmen and government officials.

Prosecutor Anella George said the high court in Ernakulam town in Kerala state sentenced 23 of the defendants to 7 to 11 years in prison.

India's justice system moves notoriously slow, but a brutal gang rape and murder in New Delhi unleashed public anger over the treatment of women and a long-unspoken epidemic of sexual violence. Faster trials were among the changes in the legal system as a result.

In that December 2012 case, four men were sentenced to death for attacking the 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus in New Delhi.

In the Kerala case, a court had acquitted all but one of the accused in 2005. But India's top court ordered a retrial last year, which was completed in six months, George said.

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