New Delhi, Sep 13 (IANS): Sending to the gallows the four men who brutally gang-raped a woman here last December, a Delhi court refused to show any leniency saying they were guilty of "exhibiting extreme mental perversion not worthy of human condonation".

Calling it a crime that "shocked the collective conscience", Additional Session Judge Yogesh Khanna said: "...The criminal justice system must instil confidence in the minds of people especially the women. The crime of such nature against a helpless women, per se, requires exemplary punishment."

"The facts show that victim's entire intestine was perforated, splayed and cut open due to repeated insertions of rods and hands," said the judge.

"The convicts, in the most barbaric manner, pulled out her internal organs with their bare hands as well as by the rods and caused her irreparable injuries, thus exhibiting extreme mental perversion not worthy of human condonation," said the court.

The court said the "uprovoked crime" of convicts demonstrated their exceptional depravity of mind and bite marks on the woman's body showed their "beastly behaviour".

"As the convict in pursuance of their conspiracy lured the victims into the bus, brutally gang raped the woman, inflicted inhuman torture and threw the defenceless victims out of the moving bus in a naked condition, profusely bleeding in a cold winter night...their unprovoked crime demonstrated exceptional depravity of mind of the convicts," said the judge.

The judge said he had to look into the factors like "society's abhorrence, extreme indignation and antipathy to certain types of cases, like the case in hand - of gang rape with brutal murder of a helpless girl".

"These are the times when gruesome crimes against women have become rampant and courts cannot turn a blind eye to the need to send a strong deterrent message to the perpetrators of such crimes," the court said.