NEW DELHI, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Four men convicted of raping and murdering a young student more than seven years ago in the infamous "Nirbhaya Rape Case" were hanged early Friday inside a prison in the Indian capital.

This was the first time in New Delhi when four persons were hanged together.

The four men were convicted of gang-rape and murder of a young woman, a medical student, who was brutally assaulted in a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012. She succumbed to her injuries two weeks later.

The heinous case had triggered strong protests from across the country with people demanding stringent laws to deal with crimes against women.

In a dramatic chain of events that unfolded through last night, a court in New Delhi dismissed the last petition of death row convicts seeking a stay on their execution.

The four rapists were originally to be hanged on Jan. 22, but their hangings were postponed a couple of times as the convicts' lawyers managed to take undue advantage of the country's existing legal system by moving mercy petitions at different forums, thereby delaying the court's death warrants.

Six people were involved in the heinous gang rape. While one of them had committed suicide during the trial, the other, a juvenile, was freed after he served a three-year term at a Correction Home.■