The alleged ringleader involved with the gang rape of a 23-year-old Indian woman, was found hanged in his high-security jail cell in New Delhi Sunday, the Financial Times reported.

After the rape, the Indian woman died from injuries caused by the rape. She struggled to hang on for two weeks before she was pronounced dead in December.

Ram Singh, a 33-year-old bus driver, was facing the death penalty for his alleged role in rape of the young woman, who was on a bus she had boarded to go home after watching a film at an upmarket shopping mall, the Financial Times reported Monday.

The rape attack triggered huge protests in New Delhi leading India's government to establish fast-track litigation for the five suspects on trial.

The Indian Congress passed an emergency ordinance that imposes the death penalty for rapists in the most serious cases, FT reported.

Authorities say Singh, who allegedly instigated the attack on the young woman and her male companion, hanged himself in a maximum security area of New Delhi's Tihar jail. An investigation is underway into why the hanging took place.

The All Indian Women's Progressive Association was discouraged at the hanging.

"The course of justice should have been served," Kavita Krishnan, member of the group, told the FT. "It could have been a landmark case, but now it is no longer that ...It is extremely muddy by the fact of this custodial killing or death."

Authorities said that Singh was lodged in a cell with several other prisoners and a guard outside. Legal experts said the death raised questions about whether he was under adequate surveillance to prevent a potential suicide, or any other attack on him, the FT reported Monday.

Mr. Singh's former lawyer, VK Anand, tbelieves it wasn't a voluntary hanging.

"I doubt it is a suicide," Anand told Indian TV. "He is not such a person who can commit suicide."

 The lawyer and the family believe that Singh could have been killed by police.

Suhas Chakma, director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights, told the FT that most Indian custodial deaths take place in the first 48 hours after suspects are arrested, when they are subject to what can be brutal and violent interrogations by police trying to gather sufficient evidence for a case.

 "Even if we presume this is a genuine suicide, the fact that people are taken into custody and they manage to commit suicide in the presence of police and other inmates raises serious questions about prison management," Chakma told the FT.