A jury in India has sentenced a man to life in prison for the murder and murder of a young doctor, in a situation that sparked nationwide outrage and demonstrations.
The judge rejected demands for the death penalty but said that Sanjoy Roy, a hospital volunteer who was convicted over the weekend, would spend the rest of his life in jail.
Roy has maintained he is honest and is expected to appeal against the conviction in a higher judge.
The victim’s family said they wanted him to be hanged, and that they were” shocked” by the sentence.
” We will remain our fight, and won’t allow studies stop… Come what may, we will fight for justice,” the person’s parents told AFP news agency.
Indian law prohibits revealing the identity of survivors of sexual crime and that of their community members.
The apprentice doctor’s death at the clinics in the eastern city of Kolkata where she worked sent ripples across the country past August.
The 31-year-old had gone to sleep in the lecture hall of the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital after a night change. Her half-naked, seriously injured figure was afterwards discovered near a floor by a colleague.
The murder sparked widespread protests and concerns over the safety of care staff in India, especially women.
According to the chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI ), which the BBC has seen, Roy went to the hospital in a drunken state and found the female doctor sleeping alone.
The postmortem report indicated that the girl had been strangled and had damage scars that showed she fought again.
Roy was arrested a day after the crime and has continuously denied the claims.
In Kolkata, physicians went on strike for months, demanding action against the accused and authorities who they said were accomplices in delaying or derailing the research.