India rape victim dies after 42 years in coma

A Mumbai nurse who was in coma for more than 40 years after being raped by a hospital cleaner died on Monday, a hospital NDTV spokesman said.

Aruna Shanbaug, 68, was raped in the King Edward M hospital where she worked and suffered from an irreversible brain damage following the attack in 1973 by a hospital cleaner. She was strangled with dog chain and sexually assaulted not long to her wedding. She had been at the center of a debate over euthanasia laws in India in recent years.

Aruna Shanbaug was in the intensive-care unit of Mumbai's King Edward Memorial Hospital, where she worked and was sexually assaulted. She was suffering from pneumonia for the past few days and was on ventilator support, hospital spokesman VK Patil said.( More after photo)

Shanbaug had suffered severe brain damage and was paralysed after the assault by a cleaner on a night shift on Nov 27, 1973. She had been in a vegetative state since then.

Her attacker was given a seven-year jail term for robbery and assault and died several years ago.

In 2011, India's Supreme Court rejected a petition by a journalist, Pinki Virani, for a mercy killing, saying medical evidence suggested that she should live. Shanbaug's coma was among the world's longest.

But it was considered a landmark judgement as the court allowed passive euthanasia in some cases. Previously all kinds of euthanasia were illegal in India.

Active euthanasia is putting an end to a person's life, for example, by administering a lethal injection. Passive euthanasia involves withdrawing life-support systems from a patient.

"I will say thank god that every suffering of her is now over," Ms Virani told broadcaster NDTV.

Things are seriously happening in the world...Sometimes I wonder what goes on in people's mind. Wickedness just feels norm for many people.