Police in New Delhi on Saturday refuted the comments made by the male companion of a gang-rape victim that police officers debated jurisdiction for 30 minutes before taking the rape victim and her friend to a hospital.

The victim's male companion said in an interview broadcast on Friday on Indian TV station Zee News that police delayed taking her to a hospital after passers-by neglected to help her even though she was naked and bleeding

Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police Vivek Gogia, however, denied the companion's assertion. At a news conference on Saturday, Gogia said police vans reached the spot where the rape victim and her friend were dumped within three minutes of receiving the alert.

He said the police vans left the spot for hospital with the victims within 12 minutes and that time had spent in borrowing bed sheets from a neighbouring hotel to cover the naked rape victim and her friend.

The male victim of New Delhi bus attac said in a TV interview that police spent time debating jurisdiction over the case. (Zee New/Associated Prss)

The TV interview marked the first public account of the gruesome attack. The 23-year-old victim died of her injuires. Her brother has blamed a delay in medical treatment of nearly two hours for her death last week in a Singapore hospital.

The woman's male companion, who has not been named, sat in a wheelchair with a broken leg in his interview aired Friday on Indian TV station Zee News. He recounted the 2 1/2 hour rape and beating by a group of men on a bus, which the pair had boarded as they were returning from seeing a movie together.

The woman's companion said he gave the TV interview because he hopes it will encourage rape victims to come forward and speak about their ordeals without shame.

He said his friend was determined to see that the attackers were punished.

"She gave all details of the crime to the magistrate — things we can't even talk about," he said. "She told me that the culprits should be burnt alive."

Meanwhile, police have charged five men with murder, rape and other crimes that could bring them the death penalty. A sixth suspect, listed as a 17-year-old, is expected to be tried in a juvenile court, where the maximum sentence would be three years in a reform facility.

The 23-year-old woman died last weekend from massive internal injuries suffered during the attack.

The attack has sparked outrage and daily protests across India and led to calls for tougher rape legislation and reforms of a police culture that often blames rape victims and refuses to file charges against accused attackers.