NEW DELHI — Police badly beat the five suspects arrested in the brutal gang rape and killing of a young woman on a New Delhi bus, the lawyer for one of the men said Thursday, accusing authorities of tampering with evidence in a case that has transfixed India.

‘‘They are innocent,’’ Manohar Lal Sharma said of the five suspects ahead of a court hearing, which ended quickly after officials said the court’s paperwork of the charges was illegible.