PUNE, June 26 -- Siya Goyal's mother sat before reporters on Thursday and did not ask for her daughter's life to be spared. She asked for it to be taken.

"If she is guilty," the woman said, "hang her. A mother is saying this."

Her husband, Praveen Goyal, was at her side. "If my daughter is found guilty," he told NDTV, "the court should not delay justice. She should be given the same punishment." He added that Siya ought to be pushed from the very fort where Ketan Agarwal died, if that is what a verdict demands.

It was an extraordinary thing for any parent to say about their child. But the circumstances that produced Thursday's statement were more extraordinary still.

Siya Goyal, 20, is the prime accused in the killing of Ketan Vishal ...