BANGALORE (AFP) - A court in southern India handed down life sentences on Friday to six men for the gang rape of a law student on a university campus last year.

The six were also ordered to pay a fine totalling 6,000 rupees (S$116) to the 21-year-old victim from Nepal over the injuries and trauma she suffered in the attack last October in Bangalore.

Sessions judge K. Sangannavar told the court the men would be sent to prison "till their natural death".

The sentence comes days before a verdict is due on four men charged over the fatal gang rape of a physiotherapy student in New Delhi on a bus last December, a crime that sparked outrage across India.

Weeks of protests over that crime and the wider issue of women's safety in India led to tougher laws against sex offenders.

On Oct 13, the law student had been walking with a male companion in a secluded area of the Bangalore campus when a group of eight approached them.

The woman was attacked after her companion was beaten up.

The judge, who found the group guilty earlier in the week, said they deserved the maximum sentence as their crime "involved not just the physical torture, but also the mental trauma of the victim that won't go away for a long time".

A seventh suspect is being tried in a juvenile court while the eighth is still on the run. The six convicted, who were all residents of a nearby rural area, were arrested within a week of the assault.

The woman abandoned her studies after the assault and returned to Nepal.