NEW DELHI: The mother of a student who died after being gang-raped publicly named her daughter for the first time Wednesday, in a bid to end the stigma facing sex attack victims in India.

The 23-year-old student died after being brutally assaulted on a bus in New Delhi in 2012, triggering global outrage and protests in India over the country’s high levels of violence against women.

Rape victims are normally shunned and vilified in deeply patriarchal India and they cannot be named under national law in a bid to protect them.

“I feel no shame in naming my daughter. I say this in front of you all that her name was Jyoti Singh,” Asha Singh said at a public gathering in Delhi to mark the third anniversary of the attack. “You all must also from now onwards call her Jyoti Singh.”

“There is no need for us to feel any shame. It is the perpetrators of heinous crimes who must feel ashamed of themselves,” she said to roaring applause from the audience.

Four men were convicted and handed the death penalty in 2014 over the attack which occurred after Singh was lured on board the bus with a male friend following a trip to the cinema.