December 16

of the utmost importance to ensure the dignity and safety of women, he said.

Recapping the details of the convicts’ last hours, a jail official told news agency PTI Vinay and Mukesh had dinner but none of the four had breakfast or a bath before they were led to the gallows. “Vinay and Mukesh had their dinner properly on time. The meal comprised roti, dal, rice and sabzi. Akshay had tea in the evening but did not have dinner,” the official said. The four convicts showed no signs of anxiety in the evening, he added. Minutes before the execution, Mukesh said he would like to donate his organs while Vinay wanted his paintings, done during his years in jail, to be given to the jail superintendent and his “Hanuman Chalisa” to his family, another official said. Jail officials said the bodies were kept hanging for half an hour, a mandatory procedure after execution in accordance with the prison manual. The bodies were taken to the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital for post-mortem.

This is the first time that four men have been hanged together in Tihar Jail, South Asia’s largest prison complex that houses more than 16,000 inmates. The executions were carried out after the men exhausted every possible legal avenue to escape the gallows. In last-gasp attempts, one of the convicts knocked on the doors of the Delhi high court and the Supreme Court just hours before the hanging. A Supreme Court bench dismissed Pawan’s last plea in a late-night hearing that began at 2.30 am and lasted an hour. It also refused to pass any direction allowing Pawan and Akshay to meet their family members just before they are sent to the gallows.

Outside Tihar Jail, hundreds of people gathered to await news of the execution and cheers went up after the hanging.

Union Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani welcomed the news. “I have seen Nirbhaya’s mother’s struggle over the years, though it took time to get justice but it has been done finally. It is also a message to people that you can run away from law but cannot finally avoid it,” she said. Human rights group Amnesty International said death penalty is never the solution towards ending violence against women and called the execution a “dark stain” on India’s human rights record.