Five men have been charged with murdering and raping a physiotherapy student on a bus in Delhi last month.

A sixth - who has been arrested - is 17, according t o a school document, and has been ept at a juvenile home since he was arrested. On the night of December 16, the six men too on the road a school bus that one of them used to drive every day. At a bus stop near a south Delhi mall, they saw a young girl waiting with a male companion at a bus stop. It was the 17-year-old who allegedly called out to them, as ing them where they were headed, and told them the bus would ferry them there. The bus had tinted wi ndows and curtains, and appeared to be a chartered or privately-operated bus tha t is used to flan Delhi's notoriously-scanty public transport. When the couple was on board, the teenager reportedly made lewd remar s about th e girl, as ing her why she was out with a man late at night. When her friend, a software engineer, intervened, he was hit with an iron rod. When she tried to sa ve him, the men turned on her, using the same rod so mercilessly that her intest ine would later be removed. Then they assaulted her sexually. The juvenile, acco rding to police sources, was the most depraved - he raped her twice, once when s he was unconscious, they say. So far, the police has said that a bone test will be conducted on him to determi ne if he is under 18, which entitles him to be tried by a juvenile court where t he maximum sentence would be three years in a reform facility. But child welfare officials point out that according to the law, if a valid docu ment li e a school certificate states that the attac er is less than 18, he cann ot be put through a medical test to chec his age. The police plans to send a team to the school in question to ensure the document is authentic. At a meeting called by Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde today, representatives of different states agreed that the age limit for juveniles must be reduced from 18 to 16 - so anyone older than 16 should be tried and punished as an adult und er criminal laws.