A Delhi court on Tuesday issued a death warrant for the four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case. As per the warrant, convicts will be hanged on January 22 at 7 am. The convicts, however, are allowed to use their legal remedies within 14 days.
The four convicts — Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, and Akshay Singh Thakur — were informed of the order via video conferencing. The order was pronounced by Additional Sessions Judge Satish Arora of the Patiala House Court, who was hearing the plea filed by Nirbhaya’s mother seeking that death warrants against the four convicts. Nirbhaya’s mother had filed the plea in the Delhi court in December 2018 seeking that the process of issuing the death warrant be expedited.
Speaking to the media, Nirbhaya’s mother welcomed the verdict.
“My daughter has got justice. The of the four convicts will empower the women of the country. This decision will strengthen the trust of people in the judicial system,” Asha Devi told the media.
“I am happy with the court's decision,” Nirbhaya’s father, Badrinath Singh, told ANI. “This decision will instil fear in people who commit such crimes.”
Meanwhile, the lawyers of the convicts have stated that they will be moving the Supreme Court against the Delhi court order.
Last month, a Delhi court had directed Tihar jail authorities, where the convicts are lodged, to seek a response from the four death row convicts whether they are filing mercy pleas against their executions with the President of India.
The Supreme Court had earlier dismissed the plea of Akshay Singh, one of the four convicts, saying review petition was not "re-hearing of appeal over and over again" and it had already considered the mitigating and aggravating circumstances while upholding the death penalty.
The Supreme Court on December 12, 2018, dismissed a PIL seeking direction to the Centre to execute the death penalty awarded to the four convicts.
Nirbhaya, a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, was gangraped in a moving bus in South Delhi by six people on December 16, 2012. The woman had boarded the nearly vacant bus in Munirka in South Delhi along with her male friend on her way back home. After raping and brutalising the woman and beating her friend, the assailants had thrown them both out of the bus. After receiving initial treatment in New Delhi for a few days, she was shifted to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore, where she succumbed to injuries on December 29, 2012.
(With PTI inputs)