New Delhi, Dec 29 : There has been a delay in the special aircraft of national carrier Air India taking off from Singapore, which is bringing back the body of the 23-year-old woman who was gang raped on the night of December 16 on a running bus.

Television channels are now reporting that the plane will leave Singapore at 9.30 p. m. IST, and is expected to arrive in India in the early hours of Sunday.

It is not known as yet where the special aircraft will land.

Earlier, television channels reported that the special Air India flight -- a chartered plane, an Airbus A-319, left Indira Gandhi International Airport at 8 a. m. IST for Singapore and was expected to return around 8 p. m. IST tonight after taking off from there at around 5 p. m. Singapore time, media reports quoted Air India officials, as saying.

The unnamed woman died shortly after 2 a. m. on Saturday morning after battling for her life for 13 days in New Delhi''''s Safdarjang Hospital and in Singapore''''s Mount Elizabeth Hospital. Doctors said that she expired due to multiple organ failure brought on by internal injuries, cardiac arrest and brain damage.

Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has cancelled all his formal engagements in Maharashtra and will return to Delhi by this evening.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called for amending criminal laws to ensure stringent punishment for rape in the wake of the death of the Delhi gang-rape victim.

Reacting to the death, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said the entire country should hang its head in shame.

Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati says government needs to take measures by enacting strict laws to protect women, and guilty should get stricter punishments.

Delhi gang-rape accused Akshay Singh alias Thakur, who was the last one to be arrested in the case, was produced before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Lokesh Kumar Sharma after expiry of his day-long police custody.

The court ordered that he be remanded to judicial custody and produced again before the court on January 9.

The court passed the judicial custody order said after the police did not seek his further custody.

Media reports have also indicated that the prime accused have reportedly been shifted to high-security cells in Tihar Jail, fearing violent attacks on them in the wake of the raped woman''''s death.

The family of the male friend of the gang-rape victim demanded that the six rapists should be hanged "as soon as possible".

The distraught family of the young gang-rape victim hopes her death will contribute to making India a safer place for women, said India''''s High Commissioner to Singapore, T. C. A. Raghavan. (ANI)