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The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had launched an operation in the occupied West Bank's Jenin that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said aimed to "eradicate terrorism" in the area.

The Palestinian health ministry, based in Ramallah, said the operation had killed 10 people, just days after a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect in the Gaza Strip.

In a joint statement, the military and the Shin Bet security agency said that, alongside the Israeli Border Police, they had launched an operation dubbed "Iron Wall" in Jenin.

The Israeli government has accused Iran, which backs armed groups across the Middle East including Hamas in Gaza, of attempting to send weapons and money to militants in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its first responders treated seven people injured by live ammunition and that Israeli forces were hindering their access to the area.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for "maximum restraint" from security forces and said that he "remains deeply concerned", his deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

Israeli NGO B'Tselem accused the Israeli government of using the Gaza ceasefire as "an excuse and opportunity to ratchet up the oppression of West Bank Palestinians".

"This is not what a ceasefire looks like," it said.

Jenin governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told AFP the operation was "an invasion of the (refugee) camp".

"It came quickly, Apache helicopters in the sky and Israeli military vehicles everywhere," he added.

An AFP journalist said Palestinian security forces, who had been conducting an operation against armed factions in the area since early December, left some of their positions around the camp before the arrival of Israeli forces.

He reported the frequent sound of explosions and gunfire echoing from the camp.

The spokesman for the Palestinian security forces, Anwar Rajab, said in a statement that Israeli forces had "opened fire on civilians and security forces, resulting in injuries to several civilians and a number of security personnel, one of whom is in critical condition".

Jenin and its refugee camp are known bastions of Palestinian militancy and Israeli forces frequently launch raids against armed factions there.

In recent months, raids have increased in frequency and intensity in Jenin.

Military raids often feature military bulldozers that dig up roads, in what Israel says is a way of removing buried explosives, often leaving whole neighbourhoods cut off from each other.

Jenin's governor said that several bulldozers had entered the city on Tuesday.

Dutch university researcher Holger Caesar heads out into the afternoon traffic on a bicycle like no other, equipped to collect data he believes may one day save lives.

His blue electric bike, kitted out with an array of laser sensors and scanners, speeds off among thousands of students pedalling home through the campus of the Delft University of Technology.

The campus of TU Delft is a warren of cycle paths -- a perfect encapsulation of life in a country where bicycles outnumber people.

As Caesar cycles through Delft's busy streets, his bicycle sweeps up data on range, direction and elevation of both moving and stationary objects -- including cyclists, pedestrains and cars.

The aim is to build a three-dimensional picture of its surroundings and a better undestanding of the way road users behave.

"We hope these datasets will have lots of applications in future," he said, suggesting they could help cyclists avoid obstacles, build self-stabilising bicycles or teach autonomous vehicles how to avoid hitting two-wheeled travellers.

"For cars it's relatively simple... They go left. They go right. They go straight on. But it's very hard to predict how cyclists are going to behave," Caesar told AFP.

"You could, for instance, use the data to develop an application that alerts car drivers when a cyclist makes an unexpected move."

The "Delft SenseBike" itself would be at home in a science fiction film, equipped as it is with LiDAR sensors at the front and back.

LiDAR -- "Light Detection And Ranging" technology -- is commonly used in autonomous vehicles, which use the laser detection to create a three-dimensional image of their surroundings.

The infrared light rays emitted by the sensors bounce off surfaces and relay back information to "map" the area through which the SenseBike travels, including detecting moving objects like cyclists.

The data is processed using a labelling technique that associates everything visible in the images to a description of what it is -– such as "tree", "cyclist" and "traffic light".

This technique should allow a car driver to recognise a "cyclist" when they see one and avoid a collision.

"The first step will be to make this data publicly available, so that academics and entrepreneurs can benefit from it," said Caesar.

Then artificial intelligence algorithms can be developed to detect, track and predict cyclists' behaviour so drivers can "plan a route around them", he said.

At the moment there is a dearth of data on bikes and cycling in the Netherlands, despite their popularity.

For example, there are few statistics on bicycle accidents in a country that boasts around 37,000 kilometres (23,000 miles) of cycle paths and 22 million bikes.

"It's a difficult question to answer," the Dutch Cyclists' Federation says on its website, noting that "not all accidents are registered".

The Dutch Central Statistics Bureau registered around 270 people as dying in bicycle accidents in 2023.

Almost half the deaths were caused by collisions between cyclists and cars, lorries or buses.

"Cars are becoming safer for their passengers but not for other road users," said the cycling federation's director Esther van Garderen.

Asked whether the Delft University data could one day be used to develop an autonomous "self-riding" bicycle, Caesar laughed and shook his head.

"I think that would kind of take away the fun of cycling," he grinned.

"We probably don't want to do that, but we still think we can make cycling safer."

Several children were among hundreds of people held in secret detention centres in Bangladesh, a commission investigating enforced disappearances carried out during the tenure of now deposed premier Sheikh Hasina revealed Tuesday.

At least half a dozen children spent months in black site jails with their mothers, the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances said in its preliminary report, saying babies were even used as leverage during interrogations, including denying them milk.

Dhaka has issued arrest warrants including on charges of crimes against humanity for 77-year-old Hasina, who fled to old ally India in August 2024 after she was toppled by a student-led revolution.

Hasina's government was accused of widespread human rights abuses, including the extrajudicial killing of hundreds of political opponents and the unlawful abduction and disappearance of hundreds more.

The commission said it had detailed "multiple verified cases where women were disappeared along with their children", including as recently as 2023.

It highlighted a case where a pregnant woman -- held along with her two young children -- was beaten in a detention centre.

"This was not an isolated case," the report stated.

The commission said one witness showed investigators the room in the detention site she had been held in as a child with her mother, run by the much-feared paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion's (RAB).

"Her mother never returned", the report read.

In another incident, a couple and their baby were detained, with the child starved of mother's milk "as a form of psychological torture" to pressure the father.

When in power, Hasina's government denied committing enforced disappearances, claiming some of those reported missing had drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe.

The commission says around 200 Bangladeshis abducted by security forces are still missing.

Committee member Sazzad Hossain said that while some victims could not pinpoint the exact officers who tortured them, their testimonies would be used to identify the forces involved.

"In such cases, we will recommend holding the commander accountable," Hossain told AFP.

"The effects on the victims' families have been multifaceted, ranging from severe psychological trauma to legal and financial challenges", the report added.

Treading a familiar path for women in rural Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Hiep found a factory job in dynamic Ho Chi Minh City and spent 16 years helping make shoes for Western brands such as Adidas and Nike.

Vietnam is among the world's largest exporters of clothing, footwear and furniture and Ho Chi Minh City and its hundreds of thousands of migrant workers have for decades helped power its manufacturing boom.

The southern metropolis offered stable jobs with decent pay, and young women in particular flocked to garment and shoe factories, where the workforce is three-quarters female.

But as living costs surge, Hiep is joining a wave of workers rejecting the commercial hub for a quieter life back home -- leaving city businesses struggling to fill their ranks.

"I have stayed in this city long enough," Hiep, 42, told AFP after her shift at a factory owned by Taiwan's Pou Chen, one of the biggest and best-paying shoe manufacturers in the country.

"I work all day long, starting at sunrise and ending when it's dark," she said. "But I still struggle to pay my rent."

Despite earning 10 million dong ($400) a month, a third more than the national average, Hiep lives in a 10-square-metre, one-room apartment with her husband and eight-year-old daughter, buying the cheapest food she can find and saving nothing.

Housing, utility, healthcare and education costs are rising across the country, and workers in Ho Chi Minh City say their salaries can no longer meet their needs.

So Hiep and her husband, a motorbike taxi driver, have decided to leave.

This week, ahead of the Tet festival when Vietnam celebrates the lunar new year, the family will make the 1,000-kilometre (621-mile) journey home to a remote corner of mountainous Quang Binh province, 24 hours and a world away from the traffic and pollution of Ho Chi Minh City and its 10 million people.

They have no plans to return.

In the decades since Vietnam's post-war "doi moi" economic transformation, Ho Chi Minh City and the capital Hanoi have been at the heart of the "from farm to factory" trend, said professor Pham Van Dai of the country's Fulbright University.

It is a pattern that has played out in many developing countries across the world.

But when the Covid-19 pandemic forced people out of factories and back to their homes, many found rural areas had developed, offering more opportunities than a decade earlier and a higher quality of life.

"The number of migrant workers (moving out) rose rapidly," Dai told AFP.

In Binh Tan, a popular migrant district where Hiep lives, the number of temporary residents dropped by almost a quarter -- more than 100,000 people -- between 2020 and 2023, Le Thi Ngoc Dung, vice chairwoman of the local people's committee, told state media.

And although new migrants are still arriving across the city, the number has fallen drastically -- from 180,000 in 2020 to 65,000 people in 2023, according to the city's population and planning department.

"When their income can no longer cover living costs" migrants will leave, Dai said. "The city has not shifted quick enough to create better jobs."

In 2022, more than 60 percent of Ho Chi Minh City's migrant population had decided to leave or were mulling it over, a survey by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the UN's International Organization for Migration showed.

More than half blamed high living costs.

Business is beginning to feel the effects.

An August survey by ViecLamTot showed around 30 percent of manufacturers in the city faced a labour shortage, while 85 percent said they were having trouble recruiting.

For the workers themselves, the future remains uncertain.

A 6.0-magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan on Tuesday, the US Geological Survey said, injuring 27 people, triggering landslides and causing ceilings of homes to cave in according to local authorities.

An AFP journalist in the capital Taipei felt tremors for nearly a minute as the shallow quake struck shortly after midnight.

The epicentre was recorded 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) north of Yujing, a mango-growing district in southern Taiwan, the USGS said.

Firefighters rescued three people including a child who were trapped in a collapsed house in nearby Nanxi district, video posted on Facebook and verified by AFP showed.

Elsewhere, authorities said a person was injured by falling debris while two people were rescued from elevators.

More than 50 aftershocks have been recorded, said Taiwan's Central Weather Administration which reported the initial quake at magnitude 6.4.

The ceilings of several homes collapsed, while roads were blocked by falling rocks and landslides, the National Fire Agency said. But the agency reported "no major damage" from the quake, which injured 27 people according to the health ministry.

The aftermath saw classes and office work cancelled in Nanxi district as well as Dapu Township in mountainous Chiayi County, north of the epicentre.

Some roads in Dapu were "damaged and impassable", and water and electricity supplies affected, Chiayi County chief Weng Chang-liang said.

Taiwanese chipmaking giant TSMC said it evacuated workers from some of its central and southern factories when the quake struck.

The last major earthquake occurred in April 2024 when the island was hit by a deadly 7.4-magnitude tremor that officials said was the strongest in 25 years. At least 17 people were killed in that quake, which triggered landslides and severely damaged buildings around Hualien.

April's earthquake was the most serious in Taiwan since it was struck by a 7.6-magnitude tremor in 1999. Some 2,400 people died in that quake, making it the deadliest natural disaster in the island's history.

Since then, Taiwan has updated and enhanced its building code to incorporate quake-resistant construction methods, such as steel bars that allow a building to sway more easily when the ground moves.

Famous for its cutting-edge tech firms, Taiwan has built up an advanced early warning system that can alert the public to potentially serious ground shaking within seconds.

The system has been enhanced over the years to incorporate new tools such as smartphones and high-speed data connectivity, even in some of the most remote parts of the island.

A fire engulfed a hotel at the popular Kartalkaya ski resort in northwestern Turkey early Tuesday, killing 10 people died and injuring 32 others, the interior minister said.

The blaze at the 12-storey Grand Kartal hotel, which has wooden cladding, started at 3:27 am (0027 GMT), Ali Yerlikaya said on X.

Private NTV broadcaster said three people died after jumping from the hotel's windows.

The resort is located on top of a mountain range about 170 kilometres (100 miles) northwest of the capital Ankara.

The fire, which is believed to have started in the restaurant at around midnight, spread quickly. It was not immediately clear what caused it.

Television footage showed huge plumes of smoke rising into the sky with a snowcapped mountain behind the hotel.

Part of it backs onto a cliff, making it harder for firefighters to tackle the blaze.

Local media said 237 people were staying at the hotel, where the occupancy rate was between 80 and 90 percent due to the school holidays.

Those evacuated were rehoused in nearby hotels.

Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said six prosecutors had been allocated to investigate the blaze.

The health, interior and culture ministers are expected to visit the site later in the day.

Climate change, political headwinds and diverging market dynamics around the world have pushed coffee prices to fresh records, jacking up the cost of your everyday brew or a barista's signature macchiato.

While the current hot streak may calm down in the coming months, experts and industry insiders expect volatility will remain the watchword, giving little visibility for producers -- two-thirds of whom farm parcels of less than one hectare (2.5 acres).

The price of arabica beans listed in New York surged by 90 percent last year, smashing on December 10 a record dating from 1977 -- $3.48 per pound. Robusta prices have seen similar growth, though prices are lower for the less premium coffee variety.

Fears of poor harvests after droughts in key producers Brazil and Vietnam, respectively the biggest and second-biggest sources of the beans, fuelled the price hike.

Demand has outstripped supply for several years now, prompting a flurry of speculative buying that further drove up market prices.

"And then you have the disruption of the Red Sea, which means that from Southeast Asia especially towards Europe it takes much longer, because you need to circumnavigate Africa, and often you have very long delays in the ports," said Carlos Mera, a coffee analyst at Rabobank.

Traders were also anticipating the implementation of an EU law that would have banned imports of products driving deforestation -- though lawmakers recently delayed its coming into force until December 30, 2025.

Donald Trump's threat of punishing trade tariffs on a range of goods adds another level of uncertainty -- a top advisor to his predecessor Joe Biden warned in December that food items like coffee would likely be affected.

Nonetheless, given the recent run, "I'm thinking prices are likely or more likely to go lower than higher," Mera said. "But it's a market with very low stock, so we have to expect volatility in either way."

Arabica beans, grown at higher altitudes, are at greater risk from climate change since only a few countries, notably Brazil, could move farms further uphill as the world gets hotter.

Robusta can thrive in a wider range of growing conditions but is less prized by consumers.

In the 2024-2025 growing season around 175 million bags -- 60 kilogrammes (132 pounds) each -- are expected to be produced, according to the US Department of Agriculture: 56 percent arabica and 44 percent robusta.

Guillaume David at France's CIRAD agricultural research and international cooperation agency, said both varieties are exposed to new risks in their intertropical growing zones such as late-season frosts, rains at the wrong time and beetle infestations.

"This year we saw these risks in Brazil and Vietnam, whereas before it would be in one or the other," David said.

Brazil grows 40 percent of the world's coffee, followed by Vietnam (17 percent), Colombia (7 percent), Indonesia (6 percent) and Ethiopia (5 percent). After come Uganda, India, Honduras, Peru and Mexico.

Climate change could make other regions a possibility.

In Africa, Togo or Ivory Coast could again start growing coffee after it was largely replaced by cocoa, or Kenya could replace part of their avocado plantations, David said.

Wherever its grown, experts say growing practices for what is at heart a forest plant need to adapt, with sufficient canopy cover to protect from both sun and storms, and multi-crop farming to protect against pests and diversify revenues.

Demand has expanded beyond the traditional markets of Europe and the Americas to make inroads with tea-drinking Chinese. About 4.3 million bags were imported in the 2023-2024 season, Mera said, up from 1.5 million just four year earlier.

Demand in Europe meanwhile slipped last year, with Germany for example seeing a one percent decrease.

The industry is also keeping an eye on the growing use of weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic, as some doctors caution against drinking caffeine while on the treatment.

Despite the recent price surge, millions of growers cultivating coffee on small farms still live in poverty in developing countries. They have little leeway to set prices in a global commodity market dominated by a handful of multinational processors and distributors.

Even fair trade programmes to guarantee a living wage affect just five percent of the market -- 80 percent of the world's coffee is bought by heavyweight brokerage firms.

Experts say wild price shifts in recent years make ensuring better prices for growers, many of whom are in developing countries, even more urgent.

A sharp drop in prices could lead growers to abandon their plants, jeopardising their future revenues, said Nicolas Eberhart of the French food cooperative Ethiquable.

In October, the Group of 7 nations endorsed a Global Coffee Sustainability and Resilience Fund, aimed at spurring private investments to improve productivity and get more money into growers' pockets.

The Hong Kong Museum of History has recently opened a National Security Exhibition Gallery, dedicated to the infamous National Security Law imposed in 2020. Organised by the Committee for Safeguarding National Security, which is supervised by the Chinese government, the permanent exhibit begins with a short video that includes a clip of Chairman Mao Zedong, speaking at the 1949 founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), one of the only parts of the video that does not display subtitles in English. The montage goes on to explain how Hong Kong ‘returned to the motherland’ in 1997, before addressing Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests, which the video labels a colour revolution maliciously instigated by external forces.

The first plaques are explicit in their messaging. One reads: ‘National security brings security to Hong Kong, our families and the people.’ The standard governmental narrative is touted, a narrative that emphasises the 5,000 years of civilisational history whose traditions the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rightfully continues to this day. The plaques explain the exhibit’s purpose as follows: ‘[To unfold] the major national security challenges faced by Hong Kong in recent years, the background and objectives of the Hong Kong National Security Law and the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, and our duties and responsibility to safeguard national security’. Yet it becomes clear that Hong Kong is merely the entry point, and the exhibit actually covers how the Party views security more broadly in its various realms of activity.

Indeed, perhaps the most revealing aspect of the National Security Exhibition Gallery is the fact that, after this, it barely touches on Hong Kong itself and in large part focuses on the CCP’s wider goals in the realm of national security. Beijing publicly lays out its aims in various spheres — cultural, technological, environmental, financial, geographical etc — revealing the Party’s opinion that there are essential links between them as part of the government’s national security architecture. This illustrates the CCP’s mindset that all of these various elements are intimately interconnected as part of one greater vision of the Party’s priorities under Xi Jinping.

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Colombia vowed "war" against left-wing guerrillas Monday, as security forces rushed to contain a wave of violence that has killed more than 100 people and threatens to derail the country's troubled peace process.

In just five days, violence has been reported in three different Colombian departments -- from the remote Amazon jungle to the rugged border with Venezuela, where fighting has displaced 11,000 people.

President Gustavo Petro, who until now has staked his political fortunes on a strategy of negotiations and engagement, signalled a much tougher approach in the face of the mounting crisis.

On Monday he issued a defiant warning to leaders of the National Liberation Army -- or ELN -- which is said to have been behind border region attacks on rival leftist groups, killing 80 people.

The ELN, Petro said, had "chosen the path of war, and war they will have".

Some 5,000 troops are already being sent to the border area, hoping to contain some of the worst violence Colombia has seen in years.

The country is plagued by an abundance of leftwing, rightwing and apolitical armed groups and cartels that vie for control of the lucrative cocaine trade.

The Ombudsman's Office reported ELN rebels going from "house to house," killing people suspected of ties to the FARC dissidents.

Syrian phone shop owner Abdel Razzaq Hamra was thrilled to finally be working in peace after years of being harassed and detained by security personnel enforcing an Assad-linked company's monopoly.

Before president Bashar al-Assad was ousted last month, his security forces would raid the central Damascus district where dozens of mobile stores operate in search of phones without the Emmatel company logo.

"If they would find one device without an Emmatel sticker, they would confiscate everything," said Hamra, 33.

Shuddering from fear as he recounted the story, he said he had been detained three times since 2020, lost $10,000 worth of confiscated goods and been beaten in jail.

"They accused me of not working with Emmatel... so they put me in a jail cell for 101 days," he told AFP.

War profiteers connected to the Assad clan have long dominated the country's economy, monopolising entire sectors, stifling competition and terrorising businesses.

Created in 2019, Emmatel is owned by Syrian businessman Khodr Taher, also known as Abu Ali Khodr.

The US Treasury Department has accused him of supplying the Syrian army's notorious Fourth Division -- headed by Assad's brother Maher -- including through the creation of a private security firm that acted as its "informal executive arm".

Assad's wife Asma is also allegedly linked to the company, the Treasury has said.

Emmatel was a distributor of telephones and IT products, including a slew of mobile phone brands.

Both Taher and Emmatel have been under US sanctions since 2020 for their links to the Assad government.

At least one Emmatel store was looted after Assad's fall, videos circulating online show, and its other branches are no longer operational.

Mustafa Khalayli said he was now out of work after closing down his mobile phone shop, which had employed five people. He had been detained for a year and lost $40,000 in confiscated merchandise to successive raids.

"Every day you would go into work and kiss your family goodbye like it was the last time," Khalayli said.

"We were at risk of getting arrested at any moment over a mobile phone."

Khalayli said two officers and about 20 security personnel combed his shop for three hours in search of any phones he had not bought from Emmatel. But when they found nothing, they brought him in anyway, later accusing him of bogus charges and confiscating the phones, he said.

"They just wanted to take away my merchandise," he said. "It's pure theft".

Bigger phone companies had also been forced to close or downsize, shopkeepers told AFP.

Phone shop owners said security forces linked to Branch 215 of the Military Intelligence would raid their shops, while Shabiha -- pro-Assad militiamen -- also stalked the stores.

Shopkeeper Mohamed al-Malhas said "Branch 215 was more of a gang than anything else".

Mohammad Gemmo, 25, said constant harassment and extortion forced him to close his shop and sell phones in a makeshift stall on the street.

He was arrested and asked to pay thousands of dollars to get out.

"But I couldn't afford it," he said, so he spent five months in detention.

"Before, selling phones was like committing some big crime," Gemmo said.

"No one dared to buy anything that did not have the Emmatel stamp," he added.

"Now, thank God, it's over."

A fire broke out early Monday at a retirement home on the outskirts of the Serbian capital Belgrade, killing eight people and injuring seven others.

Luka Causic, a police officer overseeing the emergency response, said there were around 30 people inside when the fire broke out at 3:30 am (02:30 GMT).

Causic said initial findings suggested that a resident may have started the fire.

"There is suspicion that this fire was caused by one of the residents, but the investigation will establish all the details," Causic told AFP.

Fire crews and emergency responders combed the area in the wake of the blaze, with a large portion of the facility's roof visibly charred, according to an AFP reporter.

Serbian officials later praised the rapid response of the local fire crews, despite the facility being located in a remote area.

"Unfortunately, eight individuals lost their lives in the fire. I must say that members of the emergency response sector reacted very promptly and successfully rescued, or rather evacuated, 13 people," Labour Minister Nemanja Starovic told local media.

The injured were being treated at hospitals in the Serbian capital.

The rapist and murderer of an Indian doctor was sentenced to life in prison Monday for a gruesome crime that sparked nationwide protests and widespread hospital strikes last year.

The family of the 31-year-old medic broke into tears saying they were "shocked" at the sentence and had hoped her murderer would be hanged, for a case that highlighted the chronic issue of violence against women in the world's most populous country.

But Judge Anirban Das said the case did not deserve the death penalty as it was not "the rarest of the rare cases", and ordered that Sanjoy Roy must spend his life behind bars.

The discovery of the trainee doctor's bloodied body at a government hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata in August 2024 sparked outrage.

The murder led to demands by doctors at government hospitals for additional security, with thousands of citizens in Kolkata and elsewhere in India joining doctors' protests in solidarity.

Roy, 33, the lone accused in the case, who had been a civic volunteer in the hospital, was arrested a day after the victim's body was discovered.

India's Supreme Court last year ordered a national task force to examine how to bolster security for healthcare workers, saying the brutality of the killing had "shocked the conscience of the nation".

The victim's mother and father, who were seated close to Roy in court on Monday, have said they wanted Roy to be executed.

"We are shocked by the verdict", the victim's father told AFP, tears running down his face.

"We will continue our fight, and won't let investigations stop... Come what may, we will fight for justice."

Family members cannot be identified in keeping with Indian law around the reporting of sexual violence cases.

The gruesome nature of the attack drew comparisons with the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus, which also sparked weeks of nationwide protests.

India imposes the death penalty, although it is rarely carried out in practice.

The last executions in India were in March 2020 -- of four men convicted of the 2012 Delhi bus attack.

The trial of Roy, who pleaded not guilty, was fast-tracked through India's normally glacial legal system.

Before the sentencing, Roy on Monday again insisted he was innocent and that he had been "framed".

Roy's lawyer, Kabita Sarkar, said he was "not mentally stable" and that they would appeal.

Police stopped several processions from reaching the court, but thousands gathered nearby with many chanting: "Hang him, hang him."

Rimjhim Sinha, 34, who helped organise multiple mass rallies demanding justice and better protection for women before the trial, said she was "profoundly disappointed" at the sentence.

"It was a diabolical crime, an extreme case of depravity", Sinha said, part of the "Reclaim the Night" movement.

"It is high time that India stem the ever-swelling tide of rape and murder".

Aniket Mahato, a medic and spokesman for the junior doctors who carried out weeks of strikes last year demanding better security for healthcare workers, said that he felt the "justice was not delivered".