She died at 2.15 am IST in a Singapore hospital, 13 days after she stepped onto a bus to go home after watching a movie in South Delhi, to be viciously raped and assaulted by six men.
An Air India chartered flight carrying her body, family and doctors is expected to land in New Delhi around 4 am, on Sunday. Sources said the funeral is likely to be conducted in Delhi before 7 am.
“The government, late on Saturday evening debated whether to give her a State funeral, but so far no decision has been taken,” sources said.
Accompanied by a friend on December 16, the 23-year-old physiotherapy student was just trying to reach her home that Sunday night, but never stepped through the portals of her house again.
After eleven days in Safdarjung hospital, three operations and a cardiac arrest, she and her family were flown by an air ambulance on Wednesday night. On Wednesday, there had been no medical bulletin issued by Safdarjung Hospital, but once in Singapore, the updates provided by Mount Elizabeth Hospital did not provide any hope from the beginning, pointing to her “extremely critical condition”.
According to doctors, she had not regained consciousness since Wednesday. At one point in the flight, her blood pressure went very low, but it was brought back to normal. Upon arrival, a CT scan showed that the girl had cranial edema, which is swelling of the brain, probably caused due to cardiac arrest that she had suffered on Tuesday.
By Friday evening, the prognosis was extremely grim, as she battled infection and significant brain injury. She was put on maximum ventilator support, as optimal doses of antibiotics and stimulants were pumped into her body. But, the damage done to her was too much to overcome. Mount Elizabeth Hospital’s chief executive officer, Kelvin Loh said despite efforts to keep her stable, her condition deteriorated. “She had suffered from severe organ failure following serious injuries to her body and brain,” he said.