Nirbhaya case: Convicts prepare for last meeting with family

Authorities of Tihar Jail have sent letters to the death row convicts of Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case on Saturday regarding their last meeting with family members before their execution scheduled on March 3 at 6 in the morning.

This is the third time a death warrant has been issued in the case after the two earlier warrants were nullified as the convicts took to legal remedies. The warrant for execution at 6 am on March 3 was issued on Monday by the Patiala Court.

Of the four, Mukesh and Pawan have already met their family members before the February 1 death warrant and so they won’t get to meet their families any more. They have been informed so in the letters. Akshay and Vinay, the other two, have been asked when they want to meet their families.

The letters are yet to be sent to their families. While on other occasions the convicts meet their families through a window, in the last meeting, they get to meet the families face to face.

A letter has also been sent to Uttar Pradesh jail administration to send the hangman two days before the date of execution. Tihar jail officials said that Vinay Sharma has been kept under strict monitoring after he tried to injure himself by banging his head on prison wall last Sunday.

Meanwhile, a Delhi court on Saturday dismissed Vinay Sharma’s plea for treatment for mental illness. Public prosecutor Irfan Ahmed, representing the Tihar Jail authorities, said that Vinay’s petition was a “bundle of distorted facts”. He mentioned that Vinay’s injuries were “self-inflicted and superficial” as confirmed from the CCTV footage in jail and he had no history of mental illness.

Vinay’s lawyer had claimed that he was suffering from mental illness and schizophrenia and unable to recognise people including his own mother. Ahmed argued that Vinay had talked to his mother and the lawyer and thus is not suffering from any mental illness as claimed by his lawyer on Thursday.

Six persons were arrested and charged with rape and murder of a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi in 2012, which came to be known as the Nirbhaya case. One of the accused was a minor and was tried in the juvenile justice court. He was released after three years. Another accused – Ram Singh – allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail.

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