New Delhi, Dec 21 (PTI): "Have they been caught?"This is what the young student, who was gangraped and brutally assaulted in a moving bus on Sunday night, asked her family members today when they met her in Safdurjung hospital where she is undergoing treatment.

Sources said the 23-year-old girl, who remained critical but stable, cannot speak as she has a tube in her mouth and communicates by writing on paper.

"She is aware that the media has taken up the case. The girl asked her family whether the accused have been caught," they said.

Sources said her family is thankful to media but at the same time does not want their privacy intruded.

Yesterday, she had spoken to her mother and said, "I want to live".
Having undergone a surgery to remove her gangrenous intestine, doctors said the girl passed an "uneventful night" and is "stable, alert and conscious".

"The night after the elective exploratory laparotomy, was uneventful. In the morning she was in stable condition. She continues to remain in ICU on life support, her vital parameters like blood pressure, urine output, respiratory rate were within acceptable limits," Dr B D Athani, Medical Superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital, told reporters.

"She is making an attempt to breathe on her own and we are about to start to give her total parenteral nutrition (TPN), meaning providing nutrition through intravenous route, as she won't be able to take her feed from her mouth because of the intestinal loss," he said.

In the evening, doctors said, she was in the same condition.The doctors, however, said that there were some signs of reduction of the total count (of the blood cells) and there was mild diminution of platelet count, which was 41,000 this morning, "otherwise she is alert and conscious".