Paintings, prayers and a final restless night CLOSURE
Till 2.30am Friday, the four convicts sat hearing realtime updates of their cases from the prison guards
PREPARATIONS WERE COMPLETE BY THURSDAY EVENING, BUT IT WASN’T UNTIL 2.30AM FRIDAY THAT THE HANGMAN KNEW IF HE WOULD
PULL THE LEVER
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Justice has prevailed. It is of utmost importance to ensure dignity and safety of women. We have to build a nation where the focus is on women empowerment, where there is emphasis on equality and opportunity. ›
NARENDRA MODI,
Prime Minister
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Seven years later, [the] convicts were hanged today. It is a day to take a pledge that we will not let this happen again. Police, courts, the state government, the central government—everyone has to take a pledge.
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ARVIND KEJRIWAL, chief minister, Delhi
Akshay earned ₹60,000 in seven years. The other two made less money. Our records show that Mukesh did not work a single day in prison. His older brother Ram Singh, who killed himself, also did not work. SPOKESPERSON,
Tihar Jail
nNEW DELHI: Hours before he was due to be hanged to death at 5.30am Friday with three other convicts in the December 16 gang rape and murder case, Vinay Sharma sat painting two images of a Hindu god in his cell in jail number 3, some 100 yards from the hanging courtyard.
They were gifts—one for his mother and one for the jail superintendent.
As the clock ticked and their lawyers ran from one court to another hoping to get the death sentence delayed, or commuted, the four convicts— Sharma (26), Pawan Gupta (25), Mukesh Singh (32) and Akshay Thakur (31)—did not sleep a wink, said jail officers.
The additional inspector general and the deputy inspector general, no.2 and no.3 in the jail hierarchy, were also running from the high court to the Supreme Court to attend hearings related to the execution. Only the prison chief, director general Sandeep Goel, stayed inside Tihar Jail.
Officers said this was the first time that such hearings were ongoing till hours before the execution was due to be held.
The preparations were complete by Thursday evening and though the hangman had been called from Uttar Pradesh 48 hours in advance, it wasn’t until 2.30am Friday that he knew if he’d pull the lever.
Around the same time as Sharma finished his paintings, Gupta, Singh and Thakur became restless inside their separate cells; they were getting realtime updates about their case from the prison guards.
“Before being taken from the cell where they were lodged, Sharma handed his paintings to the jail superintendent. He had painted them Thursday night. He gifted one to the jail superintendent and asked the other one to be sent to his mother. He also gave a copy of Hanuman Chalisa for his mother,” said a prison officer.
“Only Mukesh’s family came to meet him Thursday; he was cheerful then. By Thursday afternoon, the lower court had refused to stay the hangings, but maybe they knew that their counsel would approach the higher courts till late at night. The jail officers were giving them realtime information,” the officer said.
Till Thursday evening, the four had believed the hanging would be stalled, prison officers said.
A second prison officer, who did not wish to be named, said that at around 4.30am, the prison doctor told them that the process of their execution had begun and started the process of examining the convicts. Around 5am they were told to walk to the gallows.
“Before leaving for the gallows, only Vinay opted to take a bath. Initially, he cried and argued with the guards, but he did not resist. He prayed before leaving his cell. Pawan, too, shouted at the guards but he did not lose his composure. We thought the four men would protest or refuse to abide by court’s order, but by the time they came to the phansi kotha (hanging courtyard), it seemed they had accepted their fate,” the officer said.