Hours before the four convicts on death row in the Nirbhaya case were to be hanged, the Delhi High Court deferred their hanging until further orders. The four – Pawan Gupta, Mukesh Singh, Akshay Singh and Vinay Sharma – were to be executed on February 1, at 6 am, as per the death warrant issued.
The decision came amid a number of petitions filed by the convicts to stall their hanging on Saturday. A new petition was filed before the Supreme Court on Friday, even as the Tihar Jail authorities were making last minute preparations for the hanging tomorrow.
Earlier, Pawan Gupta’s claim of being a minor in 2012 at the time of the incident was already dismissed by the court twice. Mukesh Singh, another convict, had moved Supreme Court on last week challenging the rejection of his mercy plea by the President of India. Mukesh’s mercy plea had been rejected by the President on January 17, and is considered to be the last option before execution of death sentence.
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 – had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail. The four were sentenced to death by a trial court in September 2013, and the verdict was confirmed by Delhi High Court in 2014 and upheld by Supreme Court in 2017. Their review policies were dismissed too.
Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi is upset by this and she has said many times that her sense of justice can be achieved with the hanging of the culprits. However, there are many who are against death sentence, many of whom have written to the President of India to stop the hanging, urging the government focus on reforming culprits instead.
Comments are closed.