Aruna Shanbaug
suffered brain damage and had been in a vegetative state in a Mumbai
hospital since being strangled with a dog chain and sexually assaulted
by a hospital worker in 1973.
The 66-year-old Shanbaug had
suffered a bout of pneumonia in recent days and was on a ventilator,
officials at King Edward Hospital in Mumbai told the Press Trust of
India news agency.She was attacked by a ward boy in the basement of the hospital where she was discovered 11 hours later, blind and suffering from a severe brain stem injury.
Her attacker was freed after a seven-year jail sentence.
"Her actual death happened in 1973 (the date of the attack). Now what has happened is her legal death," her friend and journalist Pinki Virani told Zee News TV channel.
"Our Aruna has given our country a big thing in the form of a law on passive euthanasia," Virani said.
